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Request.URL Values

January 23, 2012 14:23 by ckincincy

Many times I post things on this blog that are for my benefit, more than yours Smile.  But if you’re here, then it must be benefiting you.

I always need to know what values are in each Request.Url.* property. 

Start URL:
http://localhost:52186/RequestURLValues.aspx?myvalueishere=true

Request.Url.AbsolutePath: /RequestURLValues.aspx
Request.Url.AbsoluteUri: http://localhost:52186/RequestURLValues.aspx?myvalueishere=true
Request.Url.Authority: localhost:52186
Request.Url.DnsSafeHost: localhost
Request.Url.Host: localhost
Request.Url.HostNameType: Dns
Request.Url.LocalPath: /RequestURLValues.aspx
Request.Url.OriginalString: http://localhost:52186/RequestURLValues.aspx?myvalueishere=true
Request.Url.PathAndQuery: /RequestURLValues.aspx?myvalueishere=true
Request.Url.Port: 52186
Request.Url.Query: ?myvalueishere=true
Request.Url.Scheme: http
Request.Url.UserInfo:


Categories: ASP.NET | .NET | Tech Tips
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My App List WP7

January 2, 2012 21:25 by ckincincy

Inspired by @sadukie I am going to list out my applications on my Window’s phone.

I’ve had a Windows phone for over a year now, I’ve actually had 3 different models.  I first had the HTC Surround, while it was a good phone I just didn’t see the need for the speaker setup.  Then I went to the LG Quantum because it has a physical keyboard.  Now, after my move to Verizon I am on the HTC Trophy. 

I’ve owned an iPhone for 2 years, and when the commercial says “there is an app for that”… they aren’t kidding.  The application list for the iPhone is impressive.  Unfortunately the same could not be said for the Windows Phone 7.  It had an OK list of applications, but not one that would blow you away.

However, the applications available have seemed to hit a level to where it does everything I need a phone to do.

I love the way the phone works.  It just seems to flow so much better than the iPhone.  I grew to hate my iPhone by time I got rid of it.  I’ve had the Windows Phone for over a  year and have no real complaints about the operating system.

Enough of the chatter.  Below is my list of applications.


Similar Post
Sarah Dutkiewicz: There’s an App for That!
Jeff Blankenburg: What’s On Your Phone?
Brian Jackett: Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” App Recommendations


Utilities
Adobe Reader – Pretty much a must own if you want to view PDF’s.

WinMilk – A nice little to-do list for the phone.  Though the upgrades to OneNote in Mango somewhat make this a little less needed.  I do prefer the UI on WinMilk though.

BandWidth – Allows you to see how fast your internet connection is. 

QR Code Reader – Ever see those crazy blocks with all the lines in them?  Yep, this decodes them!

Flashlight-X – Ad supported flashlight application.  Uses the camera’s flash for a true flashlight experience.

CardStar – One of my favorite apps.  Allows you to get rid of all those pesky reward and membership cards.

ConnectivityShortcuts – One of the new things available with Mango.  Allows you to create a shortcut directly to a few settings.  Great if you find yourself turning them off or on

Remote Desktop – So I’ve yet to try this, just downloaded tonight… but if it does what it says, it is pretty much the only one available.

SkyDrive – Gives you some access to your SkyDrive.  Not a bad application to have, even if much of the functionality of this application is already built into the phone.

VNC Connect – Standard VNC application.


Games
Shuffle Party – A fun game to waste some time.  You can bowl, play the classic game, or an obstacle course.

Xbox Companion – This integrates with your XBox and allows you to control the main screen a bit.  While a cool thing to try out once, not something I found incredibly useful. Especially since I have the Kinect.

Backgammon Pro – An ad supported version of Backgammon.  Fun game to learn!

Flush – I was a little hesitant to put this on the list as I found it an OK game, but some of the levels just don’t seem possible!

Physi Bricks – A fun game that takes gravity and certain dynamics of the different types of balls you have to throw at the bricks.

Blocked In Free – The “classic” boxed in game.  Just a fun way to waste some time.

Minesweeper – The classic Minesweeper game with a few twist.  Loved earning achievements.


Media/News
Amazon Kindle – Just your basic Kindle application.

ESPN ScoreCenter – An application to allow you to monitor scores and sports news.  The navigation can be a little bit hard to grasp, but it does the job.

iHeartRadio – Access to all of the Clear Channel radio stations. 

INRIX Traffic – This is a really well thought out application.  It combines user reported crashes with crashes reported through official means.  Has helped me avoid problems several times.

Last.fm – Your typical Last.fm application.  If you use Last.fm, this is what you want.

Spotify – Spotify is the new kid on the block in the USA.  It is a nice application to interface with their service.

The Weather Channel – Out of all the weather applications, this is the one I liked the best.


Retail
Amazon Mobile – A nice way to interact with Amazon.  Allows on the fly price comparison along with a lot more.

eBay – This application was one of the most surprising for me.  Just an all around good application to work with eBay on your mobile phone.

Pizza Hut – This one is relatively new.  I used the iPhone version several times and the Windows version appears to be a good port.


Personal
Bible – LifeChurch.tv kind of owns this market and its no difference on the Windows Phone.  Top of the line application.


Google Integration
Flux – I’ve tried a lot of Google Reader applications.  This one has been the best by a lot.

GoVoice – The best Google Voice application around.  It went through a moment where I thought it was going to be abandoned by the developer, but he has started to work on it again recently.  It just works!


Social Media
MoTweets Pro – I’ve been giving this a shot.  It is a paid application, but overall I like it.  It is really for heavy Twitter users as it allows for support of multiple accounts.  It also seems to have Facebook integration.

Twitter – The official Twitter application. More than sufficient!


Developer Unlocked
I recently “developer unlocked” my phone using ChevronWP7.  Unfortunately the “jailbreak” story in Windows Phone is still very new and not well developed.  Once this is a bit more mainstream the ‘black market’ applications available will rock.  Since I am unlocked I am able to “side load” some applications onto my phone.

Screen Capturer – One of the things I really missed from the iPhone was the ability to take a screen grab.  This fills that gap.

Built In
The podcast setup is really nice.  I have subscribed to many technical and personal podcast and they just show up on the phone when new episodes show up. 

Missing
Chipotle – Enough said!

Facebook – There is actually a Facebook application, but it is buggy when you scroll down.  When I moved to Verizon and my new phone I didn’t bother to install the app.  I just went to the mobile version as my primary method.  There is, however, extensive integration with Facebook on the main operating system.


A few random links and saved pages

March 12, 2011 22:46 by ckincincy

I have a habit of bookmarking pages as I feel that I need to go back and review the content. 

So, I’m a bit too OCD to have that many random links in my book marks and I’ve had it happen more than once where stuff I bookmarked later disappeared from the web.  Let me share them with you… and at the same time give ma  point of reference!

PC Usability Hacks

Programming Tips

Fun Tips

Hacks

Tech Links

Political/Opinion


ZagForm Killer – GreaseMonkey Script

June 2, 2010 00:28 by ckincincy

One of the websites I read often is the Cincinnati Enquirer.

At some point they implemented a form to collect visitor information:

image

If you read this, it says you won’t be shown this again… yet, I see it over and over and over again.  So I did what any self-respecting geek would do. Hacked around it.  The solution?  My first ever GreaseMonkey script.  Very simple in nature, if it finds the URL that is used for this form, it redirects me to the article. 

Took me 10 minutes to develop, and will save me from being bugged by it in the future.  I doubt this will be useful to anybody else, but if so… let me know.

ZagForm Killer 1.0


Protecting your information on Facebook

April 8, 2010 19:33 by ckincincy

If you are on Facebook, read this.  It is worth your time and I think my suggestion at the end is a huge win for how to navigate Facebook.

Having your information on Facebook can be a problem.  You basically don’t want to put anything on Facebook that you don’t want known by EVERYBODY, because things happen.  Computer glitches happen which expose, even if only temporary, your most private information.

imageHowever, you can at least be smarter with your information.  Take a moment to review your privacy settings, it is that important.  Go to the top right side of your landing page and hit the Account tab, and select Privacy Settings.

In this next screen you are given several area’s to edit your privacy settings.  Be sure to click in each and every one of them to review all of your settings.  I do this once every few months to find out what new settings Facebook has made available to me.  The “Applications and Websites” area freaked me out the last time I looked at it.

Every area that Facebook gives you the ability to set permissions on will have a drop down similar to this:

image

For much of my profile and contact information I allow “Only Friends”.  I don’t allow “Friends of Friends” to see much of my information.  Just because they are your friend doesn’t mean they are my friend and I want them to see my information.  In fact, in several cases… I don’t like some of your friends :-).

For my Photos and Videos of me I have my setting to “Only Me”.  The reason for this is that I don’t want everybody seeing photos and videos I am tagged in, by default.  Some pictures may be embarrassing or show information that I don’t want public (I am a certified foster parent, and have to worry about that). 

However for a select few sections I actually go into the ‘customize’ section.  This gives the following pop up:

image

You see that little item in who I allow to see things?  It is a list that I created, “See Updates”.  [This is the huge win for this post, I’ll expand on it shortly]

The fact is, just because I am your friend doesn’t mean that I want you seeing my Facebook updates.  I am connected to you and I don’t mind being connected to you at all, but I do value some of my privacy and Facebook allows me to control that.  Frankly, just because your my friend doesn’t mean you want to see some of my updates.

List are a great tool on Facebook.  I actually have 18 list on Facebook.  For your benefit and mine.  I have a ‘Youngens’ group that easily allows me to hide status updates from them if they are not age appropriate.  I have a list for people who live near me when I am talking about locally relevant information.  My family in Florida doesn’t care about a local pizza parlor.

The main list that I have though is, “See Updates”.  These are people I don’t mind seeing all of my status updates.   They get to see everything I post…. unless, for some reason I need to hide somebody.

The way I utilize this is pretty strait forward, on your main landing page you when you go to update your status you get an option to edit who you are sharing that update with.

image

When you click the custom here, you get this window:

image

You can see that I have the “See Updates” in my approved list, however what you should notice is the little check box in the lower left hand corner.  “Make this my default setting.”  By checking this, the setting you use here will be the default setting for all future status updates. 

Now I recommend using an approved list instead of a blocked list.  The reason being that if you forget to update your approved list, the only thing you lose is not sharing your information with somebody you want to share with.  If you go the other way around you end up sharing your information with somebody you don’t want seeing your information.  I’d rather error on the side of caution.

However, remember what I said at the beginning of this article.  don’t share anything on Facebook that you don’t want the entire world knowing.  Because things do go bad in Facebook land.


Convert Any Document to PDF

March 29, 2010 06:00 by ckincincy

image Occasionally I get a Microsoft Publisher document emailed to me, and I don’t have the software to open it.  So I went looking and found PDF Online.  They allow you to upload a document and they will give you a PDF back.

Alternatively you can purchase BCL easyPDF Printer to convert *ANY* printable document into PDF.

The free version supports teh following documents:

-MS Word (DOC)
-HTML (MHT)

-MS Word (RTF)
-Text (TXT)

-MS PowerPoint (PPT)
-JPG, PNG

-MS PowerPoint (PPS)
-BMP, TIFF

-MS Publisher (PUB)
-WMF, EMF, GIF

-MS Excel (XLS)

Not a bad resource when you are in a bind!


Categories: Tech Tips | Tools
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Where to buy cheap and affordable ink

March 9, 2010 00:01 by ckincincy

image

Buying ink for your home printer is always a huge pain.  It is where the printer manufacturers make their money.

However after needing to buy ink for my Cannon Pixma MP620B I found InkForSale.net.  I bought two cartridges on my first order, a black and a magenta.  The black went in without a hitch, the magenta however would never take. 

So I contacted InkForSale.net and they, slowly, replied and said they would send me a replacement.  At this point, I also needed a Yellow cartridge.  So I told them I would go ahead and order that and they can ship them together to save some money.  Unfortunately when my package came it only had the Yellow cartridge in it.  So I emailed them again and never got a reply, however the magenta cartridge did arrive and work as expected.

So three out of four cartridges worked fine, and they did replace the broken one. 

So will I purchase from them again?   You better believe it.  The savings is well worth it.  The big difference is that I will order more than I need and store the new ones. 


Completely Remove .NET Framework

March 6, 2010 06:00 by ckincincy

Last week I came into the office to find my box was completely hosed.  I kept getting a compile error that the webengine.dll could not be found. 

I tried many different uninstalls and reinstalls of .NET but it wouldn’t fix the problem.  However I notice that even though .NET was uninstalled, it wasn’t.  I went looking for a tool to completely uninstall .NET and found this website.

After using that process to uninstall .NET and then rebooting, I reinstalled .NET and was good to go.

Was one of the most frustrating work days I have had in some time, have never been so close to being beaten by a technical problem like this.


WebDev.Webserver.exe has stopped working fix

March 3, 2010 06:00 by ckincincy

I’ve been doing some work on the DotNetBlogEngine and recently I would get this error when I tried to debug.

Thankfully after an online search I found this solution.

In short, open up your .SLN file in notepad and edit the VWDPort entry to a lower number.  You should be up and running after that. 

Thanks to JBERKE for the help!


Find out when you’ve been unfriended on Facebook

January 14, 2010 21:56 by ckincincy

For the longest time I’ve wanted a way to see if I’ve been unfriended on Facebook, and I read today that there was an app for that.  However, as you read that article you see that Facebook reacted quickly and disabled the application.

However, briefly mentioned in that article is a GreaseMonkey script to tell you if a friend has unfriended you.

I did a test an had my daughter unfriend me, and it worked like a champ.

image

So why do I care?  I’m a bit OCD and I just like to know such things :-)