My Thoughts About Code

New Blog

2007-08-07T20:49:00.000-06:00

So I have moved from Blogger to WordPress hosted on my UNIX site. You can find it at www.kodedkreations.net. My Blogger blog should be redirecting to it anyways but this is for the RSS feeds that I have out there. So update your blogroll to the new address above.

Thanks

Microsoft Surface Revisited from Another Angle

2007-07-11T00:49:00.000-06:00

This is just funny. Very sarcastic view of the Microsoft Surface.

User Roles in ASP.NET 2.0

2007-07-10T11:22:00.000-06:00

So today I was working on a project where I needed to allow for certain users to access a site but no one else. Seems simple enough but logic goes out the window with this.

I had this which made sense to me. Deny everyone first, then add the roles that I wanted to have access:

<system.web>
   <authorization>
      <deny users="*" />
      <allow roles="CSR User" />
      <allow roles="Content Editor" />
      <allow roles="Market Administrator" />
      <allow roles="National Administrator" />
      <allow roles="Regional Administrator" />
      <allow roles="Super Administrator" />
   </authorization>
</system.web>

Turns out that you have to allow the users first and then deny everyone. So next time I come across this, I will throw logic out the window and get it done faster. This one is the one that works:

<system.web>
   <authorization>
      <allow roles="CSR User" />
      <allow roles="Content Editor" />
      <allow roles="Market Administrator" />
      <allow roles="National Administrator" />
      <allow roles="Regional Administrator" />
      <allow roles="Super Administrator" />
      <deny users="*" />
   </authorization>
</system.web>

Pownce Invites

2007-07-09T11:17:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. I have 10 Pownce invites so if you want one, email me. First come, first served.

Safari for Windows

2007-06-11T13:01:00.000-06:00

Today Apple announced that they were releasing the Safari 3 Public Beta to everyone, Windows users included. Now all of us Windows users can see how our web sites look in Safari without having to go to a Mac and open Safari. Plus just reading about it, it seems to preform pretty quick and I will be downloading it soon just to check it out.

This of course is just a Beta but I already like the fact that I can get it on my Vista machine.

Microsoft Surface

2007-05-30T00:12:00.000-06:00

A few hours ago, Microsoft announced a new product called Surface and I am amazed at its capabilities. Basically it is a interactive table top that in the demo videos had me in awe. By the touch of a finger to its interactive display, users are able to map out routes on a map by just touching the places they want to travel to. They are able to look at photos and movies but simply touching them and dragging them around the screen. They can even be resized.

But the best feature I saw was its ability to interact with other devices and items placed on its surface. Someone could set his/her camera down on the screen and it know what it was and showed thumbnail images from the camera that could be saved onto the Surface or dragged into a phone or other portable storage device. They also had an example of two people placing their Zunes (it's Microsoft remember) onto the Surface and they were given the ability to share songs with each other simply by dragging the songs over from one Zune to the other.

Another favorite feature was one that I would really love to use. The example had the Surface set up at a restaurant and the menu was interactive so you could order anything you wanted whenever you wanted just by the touch of your finger. Also interesting was when a drink is placed on the Surface, it recognizes that and circles the drink and gives little messages such as "Getting Thirsty?". Cute and people will love it. But the part that got me was that users are able to place their credit/debit cards on the table and drag what they want to pay for on each card and have that taken care of for them without the hassle of having to give the waiter 4 different cards.

The Surface's ability to know what is placed onto its surface is amazing and I would love to see one of these in person. According to the web site, it will be available this Winter. I see a lot of uses for this and think that this is one of the best ideas that Microsoft has introduced in quite a long time. I personally see this is something that will become a part of daily live much like the iPod's have today.

Tapefailure: Part 2

2007-04-12T13:22:00.000-06:00

So I mentioned the other day about Tapefailure and still am waiting for an invite from them. I am really interested in their service. If anyone knows anything more, let me know. Or if you have an invite or way for me to get in to check them out, that would be cool too.

I did receive an e-mail from them the other day talking about different features they have and changes to the service. Hopefully the next one that I receive from them will be an invite. I guess I'm not the only one who signed up when they hit the Digg homepage. But like I said before, I'll let you know when (if) I get invited to check them out.

Tracking Users with Tapefailure

2007-04-02T09:54:00.000-06:00

Today I came across this site that has a different way of tacking the users that visit your site. It is called Tapefailure and they will apparently let you play back user sessions like an old-school tape. It sounds interesting aside from the name. Wouldn't think putting the word "failure" in your start-up is a good idea but what do I know?

I signed up to be in their beta so hopefully I'll get in. If so, I'll post about my experience here.

Best Client Quotes

2007-03-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

I found this online today and it is so funny. It is taken from a message board thread started back in October of 2000. It is kinda off topic but I couldn't resist it.

http://tofslie.com/clientquotes.htm

I'm still laughing at some of them.

Twitter & Justin.tv

2007-03-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

So I've read all the latest buzz on Twitter and signed up last night for an account. I have entered a few things in there and at first didn't much care for it. But as I have thought more about it, I kinda see a use for it. I see it as a way to look back and see what you did day to day. And if people want to keep track of you then that is cool too but I see it was more of a tool for myself. Kinda like a time capsule. I don't know how I will continue, IF I will continue, to use it but it's a cool idea.

Now onto my fellow Justin, Justin.tv, who has an interesting idea. If you don't know what it is, here's my description. It's almost a live Twitter for the world to see. He's a guy from San Francisco who strapped a mini-camera to his head and feeds the video on his site for the world to see. I don't know how long it will last but he sure is getting a lot of press and to make a name for yourself on the internet, that's what you have to do.

I'll stick around Twitter a little while longer and check out Justin.tv a few more times and see if it keeps up. Both interest me but I'm unsure for how much longer.

40 Greatest Internet Superstars

2007-03-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

So tonight I'm sitting at home after my son goes to sleep and start flipping through the channels to see what's on. I come across VH1 and they were doing one of these "40 Greatest Whatever" shows but this one struck a chord with me. It was the 40 Greatest Internet Superstars and I had to watch. I only saw numbers 6 through 1 but the entire list is here:

40 Greatest Internet Superstars

Now this really has nothing to do with code but I think that for a lot of coders, this is what we have for entertainment over TV a lot of times. With it easier to go to YouTube and find the video everyone but you have seen than to find something on TV, these kind of videos will soon be the future of how we are entertained I feel.

Selecting Random Row from a SQL SELECT Statement

2007-03-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well I just found something cool as I was looking for a way to select some data from a SQL Server table and only return 1 random row. Pretty easy too:

SELECT TOP 1 columnName FROM table ORDER BY NEWID()

Works like a charm.

Vista, IIS 7, and ASP.NET 1.1 Playing Nice Together

2007-03-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well this didn't take long. I ran into a problem today with trying to get an old 1.1 project to open on my Vista machine and nothing was working. I did some digging and found this article:

How to Enable ASP.NET 1.1 on IIS7

You do need to do a restart after installing the 2 .NET 1.1 updates but it's worth it.

Who Am I?

2007-03-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Let's get this started. My name is Justin Copeland and I am a .NET developer at Terralever in Tempe, Arizona. We are a web marketing/development company and work on some cool stuff. We have a wide list of clients that you can find on our site.