Search-This

Stop And Smell The Roses

Golgotha — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:01:07 +0000

“He emerged from the metro at the L’Enfant plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.”

This scene is all too familiar for those of us that work in an urban downtown area. Do we stop and listen or just hurry on about our business?

But wait, this was not your typical panhandler. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall was one of the finest classical musicians in the world. In fact, the musician was Joshua Bell. Whom just three days before he appeared at the Metro station, had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. The very violin that he played was worth more than most of the passer byes would make in their lifetime. The violin was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari and the price tag was reported to be about $3.5 million.

Joshua Bell, one of the worlds top classical musicians, equipped with his million dollar Stradivari violin played one of the most difficult violin pieces ever. AND THE WORLD WAS TOO BUSY TO NOTICE…

This experiment arranged by The Washington Post struck a cord in me. Probably because I fear that I would be one of the many that was too busy with life to see or hear the beauty that was right there in front of me.

This is one of the reasons for the less frequency of blog post these days. The other reason is the birth of my second child. In the words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

The life of a software developer is fast paced for sure, maybe that’s why they call them sprints in the Agile dev methodology. Make sure you are stopping from time to time to smell the roses or hear the music. Work to live. Don’t live to work…

Be sure to read the entire Washington Post experiment here. It’s well worth your time.

jQuery Dropdown Menu

Golgotha — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:28:38 +0000

In this short article we will use jQuery to produce this dropdown menu. Over the past six months I have been using a lot of jQuery and have fallen in love with it. For those not familiar with jQuery it is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. All this and for only 19KB! How nice is that? They claim that, "jQuery will change the way that you write JavaScript." And they are right. Companies such as Google, Dell, Bank of America, Major League Baseball, Digg, NBC, CBS, Netflix, Technorati, WordPress, Drupal, Mozilla and many others use jQuery too. Ok, that's enough of a plug, let's look at the code:

PLAIN TEXT

JAVASCRIPT:

$(document).ready(function(){
$('.down-list').width($('.dropdown-menu').width()-2);
$('.dropdown-menu').hover(
function () {
$('.menu-first', this).addClass('slide-down');
$('.down-list', this).slideDown(100);
},
function () {
obj = this;
$('.down-list', this).slideUp(100, function(){ $('.menu-first', obj).removeClass('slide-down'); });
}
);
});

Code Breakdown

PLAIN TEXT

JAVASCRIPT:

$('.down-list').width($('.dropdown-menu').width()-2);

This gets the class .down-list and sets its width equal to the width of the .dropdown-menu's width minus two. As you may already know or were able to deduce the dollar sign ($) is used to select HTML elements in the page. The $ method accepts a CSS selector(s) as argument(s), so if you want to select a specific element by it's id or it's class as in the case here you can use the $("#myElementId") code which returns a reference to the DOM element. Learning all the jQuery selectors is very important in mastering jQuery, but is not the scope of this article.

PLAIN TEXT

JAVASCRIPT:

$('.dropdown-menu').hover(

This code attaches the hover event to all .dropdown-menu classes. Short and sweet. The hover event uses two functions: over and out. Whenever the mouse cursor is moved over a matched element, the first specified function is fired. Whenever the mouse moves off of the element, the second specified function fires.

PLAIN TEXT

JAVASCRIPT:

function () {
$('.menu-first', this).addClass('slide-down');
$('.down-list', this).slideDown(100);
},
function () {
obj = this;
$('.down-list', this).slideUp(100, function(){ $('.menu-first', obj).removeClass('slide-down'); });
}

The first function is called when someone mouses over a dropdown menu. It adds the class slide-down to the menu and then animates it by sliding down. The 100 in the slideDown method is the speed of the animation measured in milliseconds.

The second function is called when they mouse out. The part to notice here is the additional function in the slideUp method. This is a callback function; it fires when the animation is complete. So in this case when the user mouses off our dropdown menu it will animate up and then remove the class slide-down. And that will wrap up our dropdown menu.

As you can see, very little code to achieve this common web effect thanks to jQuery.

ASP.NET – Sending Email Both in HTML and Plain Text

Golgotha — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:36:56 +0000

In this article you will learn how to send email using ASP.NET. Yes, there are plenty of other articles that cover sending email via .NET, but after spending a day doing research, I was amazed at how many articles failed to provide either a correct solution or a real world example. I found that many articles suggest you create your HTML email by using a string with the HTML markup in it. That's crazy and not at all a real world solution, at least not for most situations. In this article we will look at a more realistic solution. One in which we use a regular HTML file as our template for the email. The template file will be a standard HTML file with the exception of some placeholders that we will use to populate our content and images right before we send the email. Think mail-merge in Microsoft Word. Finally, we will also learn how to send the email in such a way that if the email recipient's mail-client can't render HTML they will get an alternate plain text version.

Let's start by looking at the code in its entirety; the people that just want to grab the code and use it can do so. I will then explain the code.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

// CREATE EMAIL
// first we create a plain text version and set it to the AlternateView
// then we create the HTML version
MailMessage msg = new MailMessage();
msg.From = new MailAddress(TextBoxYourEmail.Text);
msg.Subject = "Event: " + labelEventName.Text;
msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail1.Text);
// create a string to hold all email addresses
StringBuilder sbEmailTo = new StringBuilder();
sbEmailTo.Append(TextBoxEmail1.Text);
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail2.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail2.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail2.Text); }
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail3.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail3.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail3.Text); }
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail4.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail4.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail4.Text); }
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail5.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail5.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail5.Text); }
String plainEmail = TextBoxYourName.Text + " has invited you to an event! \r\n \r\n" +
"Event Name: " + labelEventName.Text + "\n" +
"Event Date: " + eventTextBox.Text + "\n" +
"Event Description: " + labelEventDescription.Text + "\r\n \r\n" +
"Message: " + TextBoxPersonalMessage.Text;
//first we create the Plain Text part
AlternateView plainView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(plainEmail, null, "text/plain");
msg.AlternateViews.Add(plainView);
//now create the HTML version
MailDefinition message = new MailDefinition();
message.BodyFileName = "email.htm";
message.IsBodyHtml = true;
message.From = TextBoxYourEmail.Text;
message.Subject = "Zoo Event: " + labelEventName.Text;
//embed images for the email
EmbeddedMailObject emo = new EmbeddedMailObject();
emo.Path = @"~\Images\email\hdr_roar.gif";
emo.Name = "hdr";
EmbeddedMailObject emo2 = new EmbeddedMailObject();
emo2.Path = @"~\Images\email\box_top.gif";
emo2.Name = "box_top";
message.EmbeddedObjects.Add(emo);
message.EmbeddedObjects.Add(emo2);
//Build replacement collection to replace fields in email.htm file
ListDictionary replacements = new ListDictionary();
replacements.Add("<%EVENTDATE%>", eventTextBox.Text);
replacements.Add("<%EVENTNAME%>", labelEventName.Text);
replacements.Add("<%FROMNAME%>", TextBoxYourName.Text);
replacements.Add("<%EVENTDESCRIPTION%>", labelEventDescription.Text);
replacements.Add("<%PERSONALMESSAGE%>", TextBoxPersonalMessage.Text);
//now create mail message using the mail definition object
//the CreateMailMessage object takes a source control object as the last parameter,
//if the object you are working with is webcontrol then you can just pass "this",
//otherwise create a dummy control as below.
MailMessage msgHtml = message.CreateMailMessage(sbEmailTo.ToString(), replacements, new LiteralControl());
AlternateView htmlView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(msgHtml.Body, null, “text/html”);
msg.AlternateViews.Add(htmlView);
// send email now (check web.config)
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
smtp.Send(msg);

The Setup

Add the System.Net.Mail namespace. The System.Net.Mail namespace contains everything we need to send email using a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server for delivery.

Modify the Web.config file to include the below:

PLAIN TEXT

CODE:

net>
"admin@company.com">
"localhost" port="25" />
net>

The kicker and not well documented part to note is the from="admin@company.com" in the smtp tag. You can change the from address later, but the MailDefinition class needs this here.

That's it for setup. Now let's look at the first chunk of code.

Create The Plain Text Version

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

MailMessage msg = new MailMessage();

The MailMessage class represents an email message that can be sent using the SmtpClient class.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

msg.From = new MailAddress(TextBoxYourEmail.Text);
msg.Subject = "Event: " + labelEventName.Text;
msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail1.Text);

Pretty straight-forward. This just assigns the From, Subject and To properties to our mail message.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

// create a string to hold all email addresses
StringBuilder sbEmailTo = new StringBuilder();
sbEmailTo.Append(TextBoxEmail1.Text);
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail2.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail2.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail2.Text); }
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail3.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail3.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail3.Text); }
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail4.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail4.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail4.Text); }
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBoxEmail5.Text)) { msg.To.Add(TextBoxEmail5.Text); sbEmailTo.Append(", " + TextBoxEmail5.Text); }

In this example they have the option of sending the email to more than one recipient. So we perform a check on the four optional text-boxes to see if they have email addresses and if they are not empty then we add them to our MailMessage instance. In addition, we append them to our StringBuilder instance which we will end up using later.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

String plainEmail = TextBoxYourName.Text + " has invited you to an event! \r\n \r\n" +
"Event Name: " + labelEventName.Text + "\n" +
"Event Date: " + eventTextBox.Text + "\n" +
"Event Description: " + labelEventDescription.Text + "\r\n \r\n" +
"Message: " + TextBoxPersonalMessage.Text;
//first we create the Plain Text part
AlternateView plainView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(plainEmail, null, "text/plain");
msg.AlternateViews.Add(plainView);

Here we simply create a string which we'll use as our plain-text email message. But remember, we only want to use the plain-text version of the email if their mail client does not support HTML. Therefore we use the AlternateView class and add it to our MailMessage instance. We could have chosen not to use the alternate view and just made it the body of our MailMessage instance, but not this time.

That's it for the plain-text version, now we will handle the HTML version.

Create The HTML Version

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

//now create the HTML version
MailDefinition message = new MailDefinition();
message.BodyFileName = "email.htm";
message.IsBodyHtml = true;
message.From = TextBoxYourEmail.Text;
message.Subject = "Zoo Event: " + labelEventName.Text;

Notice we use the MailDefinition class this time and not the MailMessage class as we did with the plain-text version. That's because it's the MailDefinition class that allows us to to create an email from an HTML file. Notice the BodyFileName property that we have set to our "email.htm" file. This is just a regular old HTML file. Lastly, we set the IsBodyHtml property to true.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

//embed images for the email
EmbeddedMailObject emo = new EmbeddedMailObject();
emo.Path = @"~\Images\email\hdr_roar.gif";
emo.Name = "hdr";
EmbeddedMailObject emo2 = new EmbeddedMailObject();
emo2.Path = @"~\Images\email\box_top.gif";
emo2.Name = "box_top";
message.EmbeddedObjects.Add(emo);
message.EmbeddedObjects.Add(emo2);

The above code adds two images to the HTML file. The EmbeddedMailObject represents an item to embed in a mail message. Notice the Name property. This is important because in our HTML file (email.htm) we have this code which is where it maps to the image. This way of adding images to our MailDefinition object will send the images with the email. If you don't wish to send images with your email you may choose to simply add absolute paths to your images in your HTML file like normal. Just make sure the paths are absolute.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

//Build replacement collection to replace fields in email.htm file
ListDictionary replacements = new ListDictionary();
replacements.Add("<%EVENTDATE%>", eventTextBox.Text);
replacements.Add("<%EVENTNAME%>", labelEventName.Text);
replacements.Add("<%FROMNAME%>", TextBoxYourName.Text);
replacements.Add("<%EVENTDESCRIPTION%>", labelEventDescription.Text);
replacements.Add("<%PERSONALMESSAGE%>", TextBoxPersonalMessage.Text);

This is an important part. This is where we pass in fields to our HTML template. Within our HTML file we find this <%EVENTDATE%> . This is a placeholder that we use to pass in content. Pretty cool eh? Almost like a mail-merge in Word. So all the above gets mapped into our HTML template. Now we see the power of this solution. It sure beats creating a huge string. We have a regular old HTML file with the placeholders that we pass in the content. Any future changes can be done right in the HTML file. Nice...

Now the last code section:

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

//now create mail message using the mail definition object
//the CreateMailMessage object takes a source control object as the last parameter,
//if the object you are working with is webcontrol then you can just pass "this",
//otherwise create a dummy control as below.
MailMessage msgHtml = message.CreateMailMessage(sbEmailTo.ToString(), replacements, new LiteralControl());
AlternateView htmlView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(msgHtml.Body, null, “text/html”);
msg.AlternateViews.Add(htmlView);
// send email now (check web.config)
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
smtp.Send(msg);

The CreateMailMessage method creates the email message and does the merging of our replacement list with the placeholders. We also pass in the string that we created earlier. Remember the string held all the email recipient addresses. The last parameter is looking for a control that owns the MailDefinition. We don't have one so we just pass in a dummy control.

All that remains is to send the email message via the smtp protocol. If everything in your Web.config file is set up correctly your email should be on the way.

Oh, The Irony…

Golgotha — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:10:28 +0000

So this morning I thought I would take a look at some of the videos that showcase Windows 7. Maybe get excited about some of the new features, get my hopes up, why not? I went to their website but CAN'T view the videos!

First I get the, "Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page." bar, which is not a problem in and of itself. I realize I need to get the Silverlight plugin. So I try to do so and get this error message.

[ Click to enlarge ]

I'm not going to switch browsers in order to view videos people...

Oh Microsoft, why do you do this to yourself? I can't keep defending you forever...

This Just In – The Internet Is Popular

Golgotha — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:57:48 +0000

The Internet has now surpassed all media except television as a news source, according to consumers surveyed in December 2008 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

In December 2008, 40% of respondents said they got most of their news about national and international issues from the Internet, up from just 24% in September 2007.

Pew said it was the first time since it started surveying that consumers relied more on the Internet for news than on newspapers.

Television was still the main source for national and international news, at 70%.

For young people, however, the Internet now rivals TV as a news source. Nearly six out of 10 Americans younger than 30 said they got most of their national and international news online; the exact same percentage said TV was the main way they got their news.

Blog Blazers Book Review

Golgotha — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:54:43 +0000

Stephane Grenier was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book Blog Blazers - 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets. I'm glad he did, it's a very enjoyable read. It's a lot like what the Random Bits podcast offers its listeners. In fact the book interviews both Jonathan Snook and Yaro Starak which have been interviewed here before on the Random Bits podcast. You'll also find interviews with notables like Seth Godin, Neil Patel, David Seah and 35 other top bloggers.

The books main goal is to provide you and your blog some insight into what it takes to be successful. Reminding you that "A new blog comes online every 1.4 seconds" it sure doesn't hurt to learn from some of the most successful bloggers to date.

In Blog Blazers, you'll learn the secrets of 40 top bloggers, as they all weigh in on such questions as:

- What's your best tip for writing a successful blog post?
- What are your main avenues for marketing your blog?
- What was your most successful blog post ever?
- What's the most common mistake new bloggers make?
- What turns you off most when visiting a blog?
- What's the best way to make money from your blog?
- Which books and websites do you recommend to new bloggers?
- Which five blogs do you regularly read?
- and many more!

It's a quick and easy read and well worth any bloggers time.

Articles You May Have Missed in 2008, But Shouldn’t Have

Golgotha — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:04:15 +0000

Happy New Year all, here are some articles from the past year that we think are worth a read:

What to Get Your Geek for Christmas 2008

Golgotha — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:42:16 +0000

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
Yep it’s that time of the year again, time to go shopping for that special geek you love. Here are a handful of gifts any geek is sure to love.

ATI Radeon HD 4870-X2 DDR5 2GB PCI-Express x16

This video card is smoking fast. Right now it’s the fastest card on the market. Pick up one of these, or two in crossfire mode and play Call of Duty 4 and feel like you’re right there in the action! I have one on my new rig and oh man does it make CoD4 look great!

Left 4 Dead

For starters it’s Valve. Not enough? Well you get to kill Zombies! That’s always fun. Lots and lots of zombies. And you can play in co-op mode with 3 of your buddies. Setting out to do for co-op gaming what Counter-Strike did for team combat, Left 4 Dead is an ambitious survival horror game. Running on the Source engine, Left 4 Dead leaves four armed survivors of a world overrun with zombies, and they must fight their way out to escape the outbreak. It’s a blast. It’s like I’m Will Smith in I am Legend.

Captain Kirk’s Replica Chair

“Kirk to bridge, someone………has…….stolen my……..chair.” And for the right price, that person can be you. Trekkies across the globe practically drowned in their own geekdom when it was first reported that Diamond Select, a popular sci-fi and comic toy store, was planning on releasing a life-sized Original Series captain’s chair for purchase.

Sony Photo Frame

Now you can display your digital photo collection in breathtakingly vivid color–on a Sony Digital Photo Frame. Choose from a variety of slide show options, and watch your photo memories come to life on this stylish frame. And when not displaying images, you can set it to one of its clock or calendar modes–making it a great addition to any home or office.

Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard

Good intel and proper gear are the keys to victory. With the Logitech G15 keyboard, you get both. Now you can easily discover on which server your friends are playing Battlefield 2142, be notified when your World of Warcraft battleground becomes available and know exactly who’s talking in Ventrilo with the Logitech G15 keyboard’s exclusive GamePanel LCD. You can also create useful macros on the fly that play back with a single press of one of the six G keys. As every key features illuminated characters, with three levels of brightness, you can keep playing late into the night.

Iron Man (Ultimate Two-Disc Edition Blu-ray)

While I don’t have a blu-ray player yet. If I did this would be the first movie that I pick up. This movie was so fun to watch and the effects were just perfect. I would love to watch this on a nice 1080p screen. Hint hint Santa…

Any word of The Avengers movie?

Band of Brothers (Blu-ray)

This is a movie series that everyone should own. It should be required viewing material for all. It leaves you humbled and grateful for the men and women who have sacrificed so that we may enjoy the freedoms that we have.

Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Quad-Core Processor

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition: 3.20 GHz core speed, 8 processing threads with Intel HT technology, 8 MB of Cache and 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory. This is the fastest processor that money can buy. It’s not cheap, but with great power comes… a really big price tag.

iBUYPOWER Gamer Supreme 962i Intel Core i7 920(2.66GHz) 6GB DDR3 500GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

I just purchased a new computer from ibuypower and am loving it. They don't have the best customer service, but they do build great computers and for great prices. The computer I got is smoking and for about half the price you would pay on Dell. If you're in the market for a new gaming rig and you don't feel like building it yourself, the take a look at ibuypower and see what you think.

Lijit’s Integration with WordPress

Golgotha — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:54:46 +0000

I spoke to you back in January about Lijit. Remember I showed you that Lijit allows you to easily create your own search engine. One that searches your blog, bookmarks, photos, blogroll, and more.

I really liked Lijit then but I was disappointed that I couldn't integrate the Lijit search functionality into WordPress. That is let Lijit take over my search box that was already there and is ALREADY there in just about every other blog too. Instead you had to put a widget on your page. I felt like this was such a mistake I actually went to visit Lijit in Boulder and told them so. Well I'm happy to say that they have listened and now allow you to let their search take over your search box. Here's what they say:

Lijit's integration with WordPress.org just keeps getting better! Now you can either install the Lijit Search widget OR have Lijit power your existing WordPress search box. As if that weren’t exciting enough, our Lijit stats will automatically display within your WordPress dashboard for one-stop stats viewing too.

Go ahead and have a look, try the search located in the top left corner....

If you like it you can find the Lijit WordPress plugin here.

Free Reference Sheets

Golgotha — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:28:30 +0000

Thanks to the people over at DZone for creating free cheat sheets for developers. They have created some really nice reference sheets for just about everything web related: Ajax, C#, ASP.NET, Springs, PHP, Java, Struts, IntelliJ IDEA, Design Patterns, jQuery Selectors, CSS and many more.

Each sheet is done by a respected professional in that discipline -- Jon Skeet, author of C# in Depth did the C# sheet and Molly Holzschlag, author of The Zen of CSS Design did the CSS sheet. Of course these sheets aren't intended to teach you, but simply there to aid you in those things that you usually end up looking up.

So far I have downloaded the C#, ASP.NET and jQuery sheets. They're handy and they're free, what else do you need to know than that. Enjoy.

New Job at a Web Dev Agency!

Golgotha — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:51:45 +0000

After seven years of being a software developer I have finally done it - I've joined a web agency! On November 3rd I will be joining Malenke | Barnhart here in Denver. I'm pretty excited about it. It looks like a real fun place to work, Xbox 360 on down time, dress however you want and drink beer on Fridays. All while producing incredible top quality work. Here is some of their work:

So for those of you that have worked for an agency before, do you have any advice for me?

Links for the Weekend, 10-18-2008

Golgotha — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:59:45 +0000

Man Chews Through 15-lb. Burger - I don't know what to say, bon appetit...
Manuel Camino & Taurusfolio Highlights - That is some talent there.
The Importance of Sitemaps - Jeff Atwood discovers the light or at least the importance of the sitemap.
Bride In The Pool - Oh no you didn't...
Json.NET - Simplifying .NET <-> JavaScript communication - JSON.NET == NICE
CSS Sprites2 - It's JavaScript Time - Hey it's Dave Shea, what can you say...

My Favorite Geek Books of 2008

Golgotha — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:05:24 +0000

The above photo is my stack of geek books from last Christmas. Yes, I love books -- I love the way they smell, thumbing through the pages and oh yes, the wisdom they bestow. I admit, often times I don't make it through the entire book. Sometimes just a handful of chapters. But every now and then you come across some great books that are gems. So I thought I would share a few of my favorite books from this year.

Head First C#

Each morning before work I stop and enjoy a latte or cappuccino. This is my book of choice to read while sipping down my caffeine kick-start. That's because it's not like your typical code book which can be pretty dry. This book is very visual, full of pictures and diagrams that help to illustrate and drive home key points. Often times it finishes the chapter with a crossword puzzle helping you to retain the points of the chapter. In fact those crossword puzzles inspired this post. It's a great read for beginners and advanced users alike.

Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0

If you are just starting to learn Flash or Flex or ActionScript then this is the book for you. Actually, even if you are a seasoned pro this is still the book for you. Why? Because it teaches you the correct way to do things. It teaches you true object oriented programming in ActionScript. With topics like: Encapsulation, Classes, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Interfaces, and Design Patterns you will not only learn ActionScript, but also principles of OOP. If you wish to learn proper Flash/Flex development then this book is for you.

The ASP.NET Anthology

This book takes a problem solving approach to a handful of common everyday ASP.NET developer needs. Things like: form validation, membership and access control, working with email, rendering binary content, Ajax, handling errors and more. Sitepoint says this about the book, which I agree with: "Solve specific ASP.NET problems fast — without wading through mountains of reference material — and rest assured your code follows current best practices. For the serious ASP.NET coder, this book is a must-have."

The Ultimate CSS Reference

Perhaps the last CSS book you'll ever need. Written by our very own Paul O'Brien whom regulars to Search-This will know does an amazing job making sense of often tricky, finicky or strange CSS behaviors. Almost every web site created today is built using CSS, which is why a thorough knowledge of this technology is mandatory for every web designer. There are plenty of good resources to help you learn the basics, but if you’re ready to truly master the intricacies of CSS, this is the book you need.

ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed

Make no mistake about it, this is a reference book at almost 2,000 pages. But it may be the best ASP.NET reference book on the market. It covers everything: LINQ to SQL, ASP.NET AJAX, ListView and DataPager data access controls and all the rest. What's especially nice is that you can tell the author, Stephen Walther, has spent time in the trenches. He knows best practices, like using CSS for all his layout work and having well-formed cross-browser friendly code all the while teaching you ASP.NET 3.5. This is a must-have book for all ASP.NET developers.

Well there you have it, five of my favorite geek books of 2008. Do you have a book that you read this year that you thought was a gem?

Links for the Weekend, 9-26-2008

Golgotha — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:37:42 +0000

Fusionman - Awesome, totally awesome!
Regular Expression Library - Very handy, I hate regular expressions.
NFL Playoff Race Graph - I love visual displays of data.
Top 7 Fonts Used By Professionals In Graphic Design - Number one: Helvetica.
Contrast and Meaning - I love Andy's insight.
SNL- Tina Fey as Sarah Palin - Should you have missed it...

Esquire October 2008 E-Ink Cover

Golgotha — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:05:58 +0000

The October issue of Esquire, only a 100,000 issues released, features the world's first E-Ink magazine cover. The E-Ink display is the same technology used in the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader. This is the first time it's been used in a magazine cover and I must say it's very impressive!

Are we moving ever closer to that promised paperless utopia?