OCDProgrammer.com

Well I think I am finally dropping FoxMarks.

FoxMarks is a Firefox Extension that synchronizes your bookmarks between machines.  It was a beautiful extension until version 2 was released.  Version two has been a train wreck, and for the longest time I just kept running version 1.  However I quickly grew tired of the notification that my FoxMarks extension was out of date, so I finally decided to give version 2 one last try.

Needless to say it failed bad.  Its a shame to see such a good product become such a bad product.

So I did a search for a replacement option and find out about Google Browser Sync.  Syncs not only my bookmarks, but also my cookies, history, saved passwords, and open tabs and windows.  BEAUTIFUL!

Now when I switch from my work PC to my home PC I keep many of my settings.

I've helped a local company do their web site over the years.  They have come to me several times with 'great ideas' for their web site.  From 'nice' blinking text to hiding text at the bottom of the page to 'fool Google'. 

When they come to me with these idea's I fill them in on why that is either a bad practice or a downright bad idea. 

And this isn't just this client that I've had these kinds of conversations with.  Most highly respect my technical skills and accept my answer.  Sometimes they listen to my reasons and decide differently.  In the end they are the boss. I've only had one client that seems to constantly override my thoughts, frustrating for sure. 

But this local company came to me with another 'great idea' and I again told them why it was bad.  So they decided to go with somebody else.  Honestly, kind of relieved.  But I wait for the day that they face some of the consequences of not having somebody willing to tell them no.  When Google's spider realizes the hidden text and drops them from their index.

So I guess the bottom line is, feel free to tell a client no.  But realize they are the boss!  And if it is in your power, and them telling you no just frustrates you to no end... drop them as a client.  Having them make you design a bad site or application isn't worth your reputation.

As previously mentioned on my blog, I use a tool called 'Unlocker' which unlocks used files when I can't delete them.  Here is the list of changes:

Unlocker 1.8.6 - 29/02/2007

- Fixed bug: Delete, move and rename should work better now.
- Fixed bug: Non DLL handles are now listed properly on Vista.
- Fixed bug: List files are compatible with Total Commander again. This bug appeared in version 1.7.7. Thanks to Icfu for spotting it.
- Improved behavior: The executable includes a manifest for better Vista compatibility.
- Promotional feature: Added fully optional shortcuts to eBay during the installation. Simply untick "eBay shortcuts" in the choose components page during install if you do not wish to have those.

Being a writer of two extensions for the DotNetBlogEngine I've honestly not installed any non standard extensions on my site... until now.

As  you notice there are some  links inserted at the bottom of each of my post, these are some social bookmarking sites that a lot of folks use.  I honestly don't, but I do know that a lot of people do.

With all that being said Danny Douglas wrote an extension that does this for me.  So if you run DotNetBlogEngine and want to have the links on your site then go check out his extension. 

Went to my first ever .NET Users Group here in Cincinnati.  I've been monitoring this group from a distance for sometime, just haven't taken the time to attend a meeting (even when I worked 10 minutes from their location) previously.  However, a co-worker of mine wanted to attend and with her being a bit of a n00b I told her I'd accompany her to the meeting.

Going into it I knew an old friend of mine was going to be there from his blog, but was pleasantly surprised to see another friend as well.  The three of us used to go to church together, I've since moved on from that church, but they still attend.  It was good to touch base with some old friends.

The topic of discussion was on source safe solutions.  Kind of dry in the fact that while source safe is critical in an IT environment, its hard to cover a whole 90 minutes on the topic.  The panel did a great job though.

I think I may try to make this a regular thing... time will tell.

You should at least give it a try.

I'm a TV buff, watch a ton of stuff thanks to my DVR, but occasionally it messes up and occasionally to many of our good shows are on at the same time, so thanks to the my high speed connection and network TV learning to use technology I can watch those missed shows online.

All the major networks have some version of this in place, so if you miss a show... be sure to check out the network web site to catch up!

What a frustrating bit of time I've had.  On Saturday there was a video scavenger hunt at my church.   I wanted to pull two clips off my camera to share with others.  However this was the first time I'd be capturing video from my camera since my system refresh.

The AVI file was stuttering and skipping, now knowing I just installed a base XP Pro system I knew the issue was codec related... however finding the right solution is very hard at times. 

I started downloading codec pack after codec pack, and was having no luck.  So I went searching for things to find corrupted codec's or if there was some other problem causing it.

Found a few things that seemed to help.

Step 1: Uninstalled every codec pack I had installed previously.  Worked to make sure my system was as clean as possible.

Step 2: Ran the vbs file on this page.  Now after doing this, I tried the video again and it was skipping... so while this may help you, it didn't help me.

Step 3: Ran Sherlock 2.0 and it pointed out a few codec corruptions, so I worked to clean those out the best I could (deleting registry keys and such).

Step 4: Installed the K-Lite Codec Pack using the option that said something like "A bunch of stuff".  Now this actually found some corrupted codec's and deleted them.

THEN IT WORKED!!!! 

Now a side note, I've become a huge fan of Window's Media Player Classic which is installed with K-Lite.

We've all heard it... the annoying Windows BEEP.  Read a post on Lifehacker about disabling the beep, tried to do what they said... couldn't get it to work.  A few searches later and here is the fix.

Open a Command Prompt.
Type: sc config "beep" start= disabled

Notice the quotations around beep, and the space before disabled.

The big news is that Microosft has offered to buy Yahoo!  But Google isn't happy.... says it would be unfair if they combined.  Here is the problem with this, in this arena Microsoft isn't the big bad bully... Google is.  Microsoft and Yahoo just don't compete with Google in search.

My personal take is that the merger is a big yawn.  I rarely use Yahoo.  I use Live search when I remember to, kind of a dog food thing... M$ has provided me a generous life style with their products, so hard to be against it.  But what makes Google hard to compete with is its integration... I keep waiting for a LiveSearch tool bar for my firefox browswer and I'd certainly install it over my Google toolbar, but its just a habit of mine to goto that area of my browser to make a search.

I do a fair amount of image creation for my church web site.  So I was happy to learn about CreativeMYK.com and repository of royalty free images for church audiences.  It is a new site so it should have more to offer over time in way of images and in features (currently searching is painful)

Credit to: Joel Young

Now as an addition I also use two other sites for my sources:

www.sxc.hu - A site with user submitted images.  Licensing varies but most images are free to use.  Their search feature is pretty good.

www.creativecommons.org - This is a search site that links a few sites together and you can check a box that will limit your search to royalty free images only.  Nice way to find good photos.