Not often do I get excited about template sites, but I’ve found one I can use.  Best of all it’s free!  Not even required is a link back to the site… completely free with no strings is the best way to describe.

http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/

Enjoy!

Today’s tidbit isn’t about software development but more a reminder and a plug.  Often times I see stuff (my wife would say junk) laying around the house that has no real purpose or has outlived its’ usefulness.  Why wouldn’t you sell those items on Ebay? 

Get rid of the clutter and make a buck or two!  Here’s the latest from our household to go up for auction! 21 different Bob the Builder DVDs in 5 separate auctions.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320487991571&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320487992839&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320487993391&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320487993973&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320487994546&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Hard to believe I’ve been an Ebayer since 1999!

That’s the question I’m trying to find out the answer to, tonight!  I submitted PhotoConstrux.com as I update that blog much more frequently than this one.  Also, I have more detailed tracking tools like Google Adsense and Analytics than just logs.  I doubt that my traffic will increase significantly, but each little step helps, right?

The top ways to drive traffic to your photography website are all time and relationship intensive.  The first issue you have to cross before you can even consider driving traffic to your website is “will your users ever come back?”  Without good content few will return, but that’s obvious so lets just skip that topic for another time.  Here’s three ways to drive traffic to your photography website.

1.  Develop a great working relationship with a famous photographer.  If he mentions your work on his website, you have the potential to get thousands of hits in a single day from just one link.  Overall, this is a short term solution.  A single mention from David Hobby will change your life.

2.  Use Flickr.com and get involved within the photography community.  People love to see your work.  In fact if you’ve read this far look at my photostream!  Create links to your website from within the descriptions of your posted photos.

3.  If you’re not blogging about your experiences, then you’re not contributing to the photography community around you.  Being grateful and helping others brings good kharma… try it. 

I’d love to hear about other’s experiences in this arena.

Some sites sell things and others educate you, this site does both.  The Sunbounce web site sells some awesome equipment at fantasticly high prices, cause it’s worth every penny.  Most of the web sites I review I do have some sort of relationship, either I’m an affiliate, I know the owner, or I just like site.  This is one of those sites that I wish I knew the owner or was affiliated in someway, because the videos they make using their product and the end results that they do post are simply amazing.  The site is geared towards learning and as you see the product in use in numerous videos (over 100+) your desire to recreate what your seeing grows to the point that you feel the need to buy a sun-bounce product.

URL:  http://www.sunbounce.com/cms/index.php?id=1143&L=1

Summary:  The web site looks like it’s outgrown it’s current design as the ad and video links are haphazardly thrown on the home page.  Font sizes jump in point size throughout the web site indicating that more attention should be devoted to stylesheets.  Localization of the web site is not complete, meaning that the site is primarily a European web site and the English version appears to have many translation issues, though none to distract from content.  As an international user I expect more.

Pros:

• Without a doubt my favorite section is the videos of professional photographers on real photo shoots
• International web site with lots of language support
• Definitely an artistic web site not for the casual viewer

Cons:

• Localization is still far from perfect on this web site though PHP does support some sophisticated technical capabilities in this area
• Organization is a bit distracting and doesn’t quite seem as professional as it could be

Hosting a web site is always a challenging event.  First, the client must consider how fast they are going to grow versus how much they are willing to spend for the service among a variety of other technical decisions.  What I like about FullControl.net’s web site is they are very clear about the services they offer.  On the front page you will quickly see they are tech driven company for techies.  If you don’t know what server specs you need then you will quickly bounce from this web site to one less technical in nature.  After all if you don’t know if you need 1000GB of Monthly Bandwidth, you really shouldn’t be purchasing it! 

URL:  http://fullcontrol.net/

Eating your own dog food.

Summary:  Every web site I have reviewed so far and every will, I have some association with and FullControl.net is no exception.  I have hosted a server with them for over 4 years now, with absolutely no issues.  And their simplistic web site with just the details absolutely works for me.  The web site looks very portal-ish.  There are small sections dedicated to to each of the services they offer and navigation is straight forward.  Every time I forget the phone number I look right on the front page and a real life person answers the phone and directs my call exactly how I would like it.

Pros

• Simple web site, but requires advanced knowledge of networking and servers to truly understand what you’re purchasing
• Just enough testimonials and pictures to give the web site authenticity without going overboard and appearing like a scammer
• Customer service is quick and efficient when questions arise

Cons

• Again this web site requires some technical knowledge to appreciate
• Personally, I wouldn’t order from the web site without calling
• The contact us page doesn’t display well in my browser and could use a little more “designing”

Some sites grab you as rip offs and some just seem like rip offs until you open up the hood and do a real close inspection.  The software developer in me has a real hard time condoning web sites that are a proponent of allowing programs to create your website, however; the business side of me slaps me across the face and says Lisa is offering advice for free, so why in the world wouldn’t you take it?  What really had me is Lisa’s video’s.  She speaks from experience and is genuinely sincere, and her advice is rock solid.  Not many people who are proponents of making money on the internet discourage people from their techniques, but Lisa tells future web entrepreneurs that there is no get rich quick scheme and that you should expect to work 10-12 hour days.  All of the content on the 2CreateAWebSite blog appears to be sponsored by other companies or are distributed for free by Lisa, which in my book goes a long way towards credibility.  While I’m not rushing out to become an affiliate of SBI! (Site Build It!) I will continue to read and listen to Lisa Irby’s advice.

Summary:  This post won’t make you rich.  Wealth doesn’t just fall into your lap, good hard work sure does help.  And let’s face it even if Great Aunt Matilda leaves you a fortune in her will you still have to work at being nice and not ticking her off.  Lisa’s reference to BAM (Brains and Motivation) as an essential element for success is right in line with my value system.

URL:  http://blog.2createawebsite.com/

Pros

• Solid advice from a passionate and experienced web master
• Free content that is well maintained
• Appropriate cross linking within the site and to external partners
• I don’t feel like I’m on a scam site :)
• Lisa is very direct in telling you which products she recommends

Cons

• Videos are great, but if they could be shortened to under 5 minutes the would be ideal.
• I found her site motivational to blog and web content owners, but to the general public this site might appear like a scam
• A lot of good content is found in the comments and I wish there was a rating system for comments to help filter out the *junk*.

This review is about a web site that I wish some of my relatives read before they called the computer guru up and asked if what they were reading is for real.  Let’s face facts not everything on the internet is real and it will never be that way.  So before you become known around the office as an utterly naive internet addict whose sole purpose is to perpetuate  urban legends please, check out Snopes.  At the very least Snopes identifies common emails that are just plain bogus and in some cases can help guide you from making a costly mistake, and hopefully prevent you from looking like a goober, too.

URL:  http://www.snopes.com/

Summary:  Snopes has a lengthy history of exposing internet falsehoods and ending debates of *is that email real*.  Through the years the only purpose of the site is to gain readership through stories and capitalize on advertising dollars.  Snopes has several useful features including a top 25 list, a newsletter and message board.  Snopes web design does contain some marketing tricks including exchanging the header of the web site with adds, occasionally using Google Ads in the left navigation and inconsistent page layout.  Long story short if Snopes wants to move up, invest in page design as they have already mastered content accumulation.

Favorite Urban Legend…Tainted Baby Carrots

Pros:

• Could definitely help internet newbies determine if they are onto something cool or just plain naive.
• If nothing else I like to compare my junk email box to the scams and stories in the archive
• Love the top 15 legends in the navigation and the top 25 list.

Cons:

• Uncertain page layout makes the web site look unprofessional and lends to the thought that Snopes may even be a scam itself
• Icons are a bit infantile considering modern web sites tend not to use animated dancing gifs
• Too many ads distract from content

No, this web site isn’t full of computer glitches instead this web site sells real, live bugs!  That’s right they sell insects and if you really want to make a 7 year old boy happy you’ll buy him bugs like the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, Pray Mantis, or Earthworm cocoons. 

The problem with this site is that Mom won’t approve any purchases… that’s right not a single one.  Though I’d bet Carter Hayes of Pacific Heights wished he could have bought insects to drive out other tenants from Insect Lore.

URL:  http://insectlore.stores.yahoo.net/index.html

Summary:  This web site appears a bit outdated in the design department like a circa 1997 HTML book hack, but due to the nature of Insect Lore’s business the site works for me.  I’m not going to give at an A or a B but in the end it works, which is all that’s necessary to survive in the web world.  The descriptions of each product and how to order are very informative and cross selling is very good and not overly aggressive.  Disclaimer:  I have not ordered from Insect Lore so I cannot recommend their services, but recognize the company does use a Yahoo storefront which does give them a little more credibility than the crackpot that’s writing this post!

Pros:

• Very concise descriptions of product
• Easy ordering instructions
• You come here to order bugs and bug related equipment specifically.  There’s  nothing to distract you from your purchase which is kind of nice for a change.

Cons:

• Detail care instructions should be found in each description of live insects would be a quick upgrade
• I’m surprised there isn’t a more well defined header for this web site.  The do have very well defined left hand navigation and we all know I’d label that feature as old school
• Real pictures are used but it’s really hard to determine from existing pictures what you are receiving when you order.
• I’d love to see a dedicated web cam on a Hissing Cockroach Butterfly Garden.

This is day two in my week long experiment to review seven web sites in hopes of developing a matrix to further evaluate web sites.  If you missed my first post, it was about Project Gutenburg.  Today’s web site for review is under the direction of the Bureau of Land Management and is the repository for the General Land Office Records for many states.  The link is below:

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/

Summary:  Once in awhile you find a site that you just type in random names to see what pulls up.  This is exactly the kind of web site you can spend hours plugging in your great grandparents names and get information about where they lived and in some cases how much they paid for their land.  My first impression is that this is a very clean site, though I’m not sure how the row of landscape pictures across the top serves a purpose for the overall User Interface design and therefore recommend it’s removal and the site would look a step up in the realm of presentation.  After using the site for a over 100 searches of my ancestral home lands, I was impressed by the performance of the site and its ease of use, which is obviously a goal the developers placed high on the requirements list.

For example my Great Grandfather Charley F Reynolds lived in Arkansas I found in less than a minute and I even spelled his first name incorrectly.  The document that was provided listed the legal land description.  Some one with a little more skill than I have acquired to date, might be able to determine the exact location where Charley lived, unfortunately I’ll just use the City, State and County information to do more genealogical research.  One final recommendation for change… in addition to legal land descriptions, integrate with either Bing Maps or Google Maps and show your users exactly where the land is located.

Pros:

• Direct and to the point this site will allow quick searches in addition to providing scans of original documents to the user in multiple file formats
• Performance of this web site is snappy and image optimization is high
• This is a government web site so accessibility is a concern and this site adheres to Section 508 compliance.
• Loved the small add in the bottom right advertising the wild horse and burro program

Cons:

• Ok, does every government web site have to look the same?
• Legal land description is hard to pinpoint on a map
• Well, maybe only hard core genealogists really care about this site

I’ve decided to do a short experiment.  For the next seven days I will review one web site, afterwards I’ll analyze my reviews for common points and create a matrix which I will use to review more web sites, though I won’t make the promise/commitment of doing one per day after my initial seven.

First up, is Project Guttenburg. 

Summary:  As far as web sites are concerned, if you fall into the camp that content is king then this web site is right up your alley.  With over 28,000 downloadable classic novels and many off the ordinary beat books you can easily get your high class reading material here, for free.

Pros: 

• Many classical authors that you’ve always wanted to read, yet didn’t want to pay for
• There are roughly 1,000 audio books, again many of the classics… so if you don’t want to read, you could potentially listen to your next reading assignment
• Quick loading site with little to no fluff
• Volunteers transcribe books and proof read, so a life skill can also be acquired through the site
• Typical information is provided about the project via the About Us heading, though I wish it were a separate page so it would get indexed higher in search rankings

Cons:

• Not every book is available in the format you’d like to have it.  Not many PDFs, though many are text only, or a combination of HTML and images.
• Not sure who’s funding the site as it appears to be a donation only web site… I’m curious about the stability of the site and ownership continuity.
• Search is rather minimal.  Most searches are done via author or Title (or words int hat title)
• Left hand only navigation is very old school

Searching is my life long mantra.  I searched for 25 years for my wife and found perfection.  I’ve searched for 2 years for blog software… and I still haven’t found the perfect tool.

The hang up is I want to write my own controls like an image rotator with some domain logic, but I don’t want to write all the features, just this one.  So far my best choices are listed below:

http://www.dasblog.info/

and

http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/

I’m a fan, probably too much.  My cheeks turn a slight shade of pink when I think how much Stephenie Meyer’s books influence my actions.

If you can’t get enough, too, check out the story called Midnight Sun (Edward’s version of Twilight) at her web site.

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html

I received a phone call tonight asking if I was the Michael Reynolds who was accused of deserting the Army Reserve.  No, I'm not being held in the Johnson County jail and my family will be just fine.  Thanks for your concern.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/19241295/detail.html

Mike’s fast, very fast.  Reader that is.  Recently, I read the entire Twilight Saga in 1 week (I even worked overtime :) I subscribe to 40+ blogs and listen to a dozen podcasts.  No doubt that I’m living it up in the information age.  But all is not blissful, there are still a few topics not in my mainstream reading that I want more of…

1. How other balance their online lives on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
2. How to make flash modifications for cameras with design plans
3. Tips on buying a classic Mustang
4. How to manage your kids online time effectively
5. Methods for parents to teach kids about Chemistry
6. Cool activities for Cub Scout leaders
7. Most effective exercises for toning abs
8. Why some people only attend Church on Christmas Eve
9. Best places to view wildlife in Kansas City
10. How to make a living on the internet
11. Best places to take outdoor portraits
12. How to organize a portrait taking event
13. Too many questions, not enough answers
14. What’s the optimum number of computers for a family of four?
15. Why should I be a Republican?
16. Basic car maintenance for a 2003 PT Cruiser
17. How to motivate employees during an economic crisis
18. Best ways to generate traffic to my blog (OK, that’s selfish)
19. Best training resources for photographers (not looking for free stuff)
20. Mentors experiences in the God and Country program

No mistake about it, I work for a large company.  When you have 20,000 employees there is just so much overlap and finding the one person who knows how to help you is tough.

I wish that my company had a status update like Facebook.com.  That way I could see what people are working on and offer my advice if I’ve done something similar.  My status would be updated about 20 times a day though, because I’m so attention deficit inattentive to any one thing.  I so want to pitch status updating to my management…  I need to figure out how to sell it… you know, got to have business value.

Who writes this stuff?
I’m Mike Reynolds, a software developer and avid photographer.  I studied Spanish, Education and Civil Engineering at more universities than any one I know.  Yes, I graduated multiple times!  I have taught web and database programming at Intel, Sprint and AT&T and loved every minute.  I manage a small group of software developers and help as many people achieve their dreams as humanly possible

When/why did you start this blog?
Originally, I launched this blog to rant about technology, but I’m quickly ramping up on the photography side more than ever.  One day I’ll focus my attention on a single topic, but until then enjoy my randomness.

How much time do you spend blogging?
I spend about 8 hours a week and have tons of fun doing so.  Chris, my wife, loves reading my typos as it makes me look more human.

What Blogger template do you use?
I use DAS Blog, because Scott Hanselman does.  He’s my favorite rock star famous programmer.  If he’s smart enough to figure it out, I figured I could, too.

How do I subscribe to your blog?
I make my entire post available over RSS feeds. You can subscribe by clicking here.

Being an avid photographer and Dad of a Tiger Cub allows me the unique perspective of shooting anything outdoors and passing it off as educational.  The kids and I were at the Prairie Center Park when I noticed several varieties of Chrysalis among the trees.  The kids found it very amazing that each kind of tree yielded a different kind of moth, though I’m still not sure what kinds of moth/butterfly is inside each.  Since we are proponents of the Leave No Trace program the little critters stayed very safe from little hands, but my next task will be to identify from these pictures what type of insect we are dealing with.  There are three different Chrysalis represented in the accompanying pictures and any help identifying would be welcome.  One step that should probably be taken is to identify the trees that the different moth/butterfly homes on which the cocoons were built.  In any event if you have ideas to help identify the photos, please, post in comments.

P.S.  You might not know this but in High School I won 1st place in an FFA entomology contest and placed in two state contests.  Yep that’s right, I’m the bug guy.  Strange, how wildly popular this made me with my classmates.  Popular and delusional. 

In my last Bald Eagle post I showed only photos that I snapped.  In this post I’ll show only pictures taken by Bryan Orr.  He’s become an avid Kansas City Bald Eagle watcher to the point that when I want to do a photo shoot involving our national bird I contact him first!

Bryan you got some awesome angles.  When are you start offering sight seeing tours, I’ll be the first to sign up!

After four months of using my HP MediaServer I’m sold that the little hunk of junk is the best backup system/methodology one can have without the hum of servers in your basement.  Here’s my quick list to justify the label of ‘Easiest home backup system.’

• Backups and Notification of backup status
• User Account Consolidation
• Remote Administration
• Free SSL certificate to secure remote administration
• Central location for file storage, both public and private
• Photo sharing web site
• Easily add more storage to your unit

Sometimes you think of people when you least expect it.  Rue Porter passed away a month ago and today I experience a flashback of the plumbing training he passed along to me.  For the last 2 weekends my intentions were to replace a cracked toilet in the master bathroom, but batch processing failures at my employer and lots of overtime had prevented the chore be accomplished until today. 

I went to the good ole’ Home Depot with the family and set out to select our new toilet.  Fortunately, for us this weekend was the big Bathroom Savings event.  There was a choice of about 40 different commodes and I could see a glazed look in my wife’s eyes.  Suddenly, I remembered the words of Rue… you can’t go wrong with American Standard. This narrowed our selection down to two models.  We ended up going with one with the biggest flush capacity.  With the industry’s largest flush valve and trapway, we are going to have a very fast and powerful flush…I can’t wait until the kids stress test out the flushing capabilities…ability to flush 200 sheets of toilet paper is what American Standard touts.

In my category scheme, this post falls under Management.

Unless you work for a web development company your decision on how or where to setup a web site just got a lot harder.  The core factors at the heart of the build or buy choices lie in what features are required to do business and range from the necessities to ultimate luxuries.  In my conversation with a non-profit organization their concerns rely in the realms of communication, social networking and branding.  In today’s Internet world some of the easiest and cheapest freebie web applications address all of these concerns.  Here’s a list of items discussed during that conversation that I will elaborate on in the upcoming weeks.

• MySpace, FaceBook and Yahoo Groups
• Updateable web site without programming and uploading
• Cost
• Technology that you know versus that which you don’t
• Email capabilities
• Use an out of the box solution or develop custom software
• Custom URL or use location shared via a parent organization

I look forward to doing a deep dive into each of the topics and meeting people who are interested in these topics.  Please, leave your insight in the comments of this web site.

My brother-in-law, Bryan Orr, is a great nature observer.  A week ago he was driving some clients to the KCI airport when he noticed a Bald Eagle near the river.  He was so excited he started checking everywhere near the Missouri River to see if he could find a nest or just a plain old good spot to sit and watch.  It didn’t take long until he found a really nice spot in downtown Kansas City, Missouri near the Broadway bridge to kick back and watch his Bald Eagles.  Funny thing, the first time he saw an eagle downtown it was walking around near the river and he thought it was a turkey…seriously a turkey, come on.  Before Bryan started telling other family members about the incident he went down on December 31st around 9:00 AM with his Mom’s camera to get some prints as proof that Bald Eagles really do inhabit the city.  But he couldn’t wait until they were developed (yeah, he still shoots film) and spilled his guts at the family New Year’s Eve party…truthfully, I wouldn’t been able to contain the secret either! As Bryan’s telling me about the whole series of events, I had to get in on that action, even if there was only a remote chance to see an eagle in the wild.  After begging his wife, Kim, to let us go on a New Years morning photo shoot, I was just hoping we’d get to see at least one eagle.  We arrived at our location (see below) about 10 minutes after 8:00 AM and I shot my first Bald Eagle at 8:17 AM according to the metadata in my first photo and continued to shoot until 8:55.  There were a total of 4 eagles present in less than an hour; two adults and two juveniles.  Bryan speculates the group is a family, but I’m not so sure of eagle habits to jump on board with the concept, yet.

The entire time I was shooting I kept thinking, “how lucky am I to live near Kansas City and able to see Bald Eagles.”  In fact I work within a few blocks away from the exact site I shot at. After the guys at work see these pics, we’ll be headed over to the bridge for a few more breaks!

In case you care to know, I shoot a Canon 40D and in this situation I shot an 85-300 telephoto, mostly on the 300 side.  I was so darn excited about seeing wild Bald Eagles that I didn’t feel comfortable using a manual mode, so I dialed in the ‘Sports’ mode and acted like a wild man snapping away.  One interesting note about the exposure time.  On most of the pictures the time is 1/400 though an about a third of the pictures I see the exposure time as 1/395.  The 40D is new so I’ll work on understanding the differences between the two times.  ISO was set low on most pictures at ISO 100. My 40D is still set on the auto ISO mode so this was selected automatically by the camera.  As I *learn* this camera more, I have 200 clicks on it after this shoot, I’ll find out the nuances, similar to my experience on Canon’s 10D.  The big difference is the amount of pixels as these photos were taken about 500 feet away and I still had enough pixels to generate nice web images, though I’d hate to try to get prints off of these pics as they are highly cropped.

If you’re interested in shooting the Eagles yourself, here’s the exact spot (see map below) that I snapped the photos in this post.  We parked in the lot and stood about 5 feet from the car to get these pics.  We’ve seen Bald Eagles in this exact location three out of three times around 8:00 to 10:00 AM.  Post in the comments when you plan on going and maybe you’ll see either Bryan or I there! 

Broadway Bridge, Kansas City, Missouri

Thanks for sharing your Eagle knowledge, Bryan… U R da’ man!

My six (soon to be seven and thus the title of this post was generated) year old son wants to build, build and build some more.   We decided that a good from scratch project would be a bird feeder and started to research plans on the internet for bird feeders.  My wife ended up with two bird feeders as Christmas gifts (OK, I bought them for her :)

Here’s a list of mediocre plans

• http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/woodwork/ww1/
• http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/Y/YANR-0008/
• http://www.freebirdfeederplans.com/Assembly_1.htm
• http://www.blackanddecker.com/ProjectCenter/ProjectDetail.aspx?DOC_ID=p_2_99_23589_23593.html
• http://www.northern.edu/natsource/DAKOTA1/Birdfe1.htm
• http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=Build/ScrapsForTheBirds.html

Here’s the short list

• http://www.am-wood.com/nov97/bird.html – Bird feeder table
• http://www.fiddlecreekfarms.com/store/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=2145  - This is what I want and wish I could find plans for…

In our random searches we found a very interesting site that has Nest web cams from Cornell

http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nest/home/index

If I were going to build my own Purple Martin house, I would use this web site ( http://www.mdc.mo.gov/nathis/woodwork/ww6/ )

Wow, lots of links in this post…I don’t know if I found the one we’ll build but I hope that this post helps out.

-Mike

As of this very day, December 20, 2008 the top two searches on http://www.Google.com for creating DVDs from a PowerPoint presentation involve the following two products:

E.M. PowerPoint Video Converter – The completely free way to make a DVD, but it has one serious flaw in most of my conversions.  Hold onto your hats for this one!  It overrides all of transitions and only has the capacity to set them to a single value.  If all your transitions are consistent then no worries.  But if you’ve spent a lot of time on customizing slide to slide transitions then look to the solution below…

Acoolsoft’s PPT2DVD -  This software package effectively handles custom animations and slide to slide transitions preserving them nicely in DVD format.  After designing the DVD layout it’s quite literally one step to put your existing PowerPoint Presentation into the PPT2DVD interface and another click to directly burn a DVD that’s playable in most of today’s DVD players.  The downside is that this solution is not free… I paid $79 for my copy via the vendors' web site, though I’ve seen it listed for as much as $129.

In summary when it comes to ease of use, a nice feature set and pure speed of solution, there’s only one way to go…spend the money on PPT2DVD and your project is well on it’s way to completion.

UPDATE:  I was asked why I needed this software... well, my Grandfather died and on short notice I created a nice memorial PowerPoint presentation, all the while thinking I'd be able to burn to a CD and disperse to fellow family members.  Oh, what a surprise, I worked about 7 hours and realized this option didn't exist and many of the family members most interested in viewing my creation do not have computers!  Frantic, I searched for a solution that could get what I needed done in less than 3 hours.  I tried the video converter listed first, but was disappointed that it blew away all my transition settings.  Next, was a free trial of the PPT2DVD software, which ultimately led to it's purchase.

In my current role as a team manager, I’ve paid particular attention to consistency across our application.  This currently means having consistent navigation and when you see a grid on one module that grid basically functions the same as other modules.  Another example occurring frequently in large web sites is multiple calendar controls each with slightly different look and feel.  In developing these applications over the years, I’ve noticed that applications that maintain a consistent look and feel are often perceived to be more user friendly (no one has to read the manual to use them), while having multiple features that are just a little bit different often creates a “clunky” feel.

With all of today’s various browsers the concept of consistency across browsers comes into play (pay attention, the real meat of the article starts now).  Shouldn’t someone using Internet Explorer have the same experience as a Firefox user?  I maintain that the experience shouldn’t be painful for one browser user while enjoyable for another.   One caveat, if you control the browser and version that users will be viewing the site (like an Line of Business intranet application) then all bets off.

What raised my ire to this cause?  Take a look at Today’s MSNBC site in the screen shots below.  I was wanting to look at the worst names in history (Harry Pitts seems to be winning).

Here’s a nice IE experience.  The only gotcha’ on this design is the scroll bar within scrollbars at some resolutions

The less than stellar FireFox experience involves minor overlapping of the navigation with the background DIV and makes the web site appear less than A1 quality.

The big ticket experience earned here?  It’s all in the quality… at the personal blog level, people tolerate lots of flaws, at the MSNBC.com level expectations are much higher.

Happy Programming.

I’m completely out of character today.  It’s been months since I’ve bought a Star Wars action figure and even more earth shattering is I cleared off a section of my shelves for my art materials.  My close friends know that this is completely out of character…maybe even a bit unbelievable.  For four years my budget for action figures has rivaled the budget for gas in the car.  Now, I’ve taken on an freebie Art project and volunteer Web Site.  This really started with the Strobist blogging about working for free…best inspiration I’ve had in awhile.

The winds of change have hit the Reynolds household and I’m back to focusing on Web Development and Art.  In the highest and lowest moments of my life Art has gotten me through, and when I needed to go a step farther the Web took me there.  Wow, I really love technology.  I knew I’d be back, just didn’t know when.  I’m glad it happened…thanks for waiting.

My first go around with blogging was quite an experience.  My gung-ho intentions and “doer” attitude led to the creation of my own blogging software.  I wouldn’t trade that experience for two Rubik’s cubes, but WOW it was a lot of work and I didn’t have near the features implemented that I truly needed.

Here’s a list of the three best features and why I picked them.

1.  Integration with Windows Live Writer.  This single feature mentioned by Scott Hanselman drove me away from maintaining my own code base and installing dasBlog.  Writing my own RSS feeds and aggregating data was fun, but tweaking that code into the API useable by Windows Live Writer was just daunting.  Frankly, I’d rather be exploring code and other concepts here on my Site Construx blog than conforming to an API that dozens of other platforms already use.  My next statement may be hard to believe, so hold onto your hat… Live Writer is a free download!

2.  Emailed daily summary of statics.  That’s right, every day I get a list of referrers and search engine stats emailed to me.  I created a rule to put them into a folder and at the end of each week I review what the views of Site Construx are really looking at and how they arrived here.  When the powers that be (user searches) and my desires to write coincide with a single topic a smile comes to my face, cause one day, I know I’m going to have an advertiser!

3.  Ease of upgrades.  I was worried that the upgrades would be painful.  In my limited experience (I’ve only done one upgrade) it was seamless.  Just drop the files into the main folder and Viola. 

dasBlog fits really well into my ASP.NET skill set and just gets me excited about all my blogging potential.  If you’re interested in installing dasBlog, the downloads can be found on CodePlex

An nameless coworker of mine sent me a link to http://www.typealyzer.com yesterday.  I’m not sure how serious an endeavor this is, but I quickly plugged in my favorite bloggers sites to see their personalities.

Analyzing Site Construx yields that I’m a doer, which I totally agree with.  The only problem I had with the analysis was the pen line drawing of the girl dribbling a basketball as representative of ‘The Doers’.  After some good natured ribbing by my coworker friends, I’m over that road block.  Overall I like the analysis and hope you have fun with the tool as well.

Let me just go on the record by saying I like Unit Tests.

But we are still in the early West stages of introducing them into the Software Development Industry.  I need to point no further than this article about running unit tests in Visual Studio.  After you get your VSMDI file generated and you check into source control, by default your going to experience some pain when the other developers on your team jump on the unit testing bandwagon.  The pain occurs in the multiple VSMDI generation, which WILL happen as more people look at your tests and write their own.

The solution is to not allow the original VSMDI file to be auto checked out.  Like all good things Microsoft has made, there are a series of steps to prevent this.  Too bad I didn’t come across them until our development team hit the road block.

The step by step solution is provided here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957358

Very few things published on the Internet inspire me.  I mean really inspire me…like goose bump, spine tingling, get off your duff inspire.  I just got inspired by a blog post of a photographer.  By know you know that I enjoy snapping a set of pictures in between coding a full day, eating and coding into the night.  But my nights are reserved for those truly worthy projects.  The kind that are driven by passionate mad men that movies are made about.  My latest pet project is Pack3084.com.  Being inspired by Cub Scouts will make your nights long, but your heart warm…

Back to the chase (inspiration that is).  The Strobist blog has an amazing case built on working for free.  Well, only for free when it’s the projects that won’t get done unless it is for free.  After all is said and done, we do have to eat and pay the mortgage, too.  After reading this post most of the concepts can be applied to the web development world…here’s a few to entice you to click through and read the entire article.

• Free Buys Access
• Free Removes Boundaries
• Free Buys You Near Total Control
• Free is Powerful Karma
• But I don’t want to be Branded as a Free Photographer Web Developer
• Why Now? Isn’t the Whole World Caving In?

If you’re still reading click through, click through and read now.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/12/four-reasons-to-consider-working-for.html

Your first visit has to be to http://purplemartin.org/ as this web site is dedicated to the conservation of the Purple Martin. The site maintains printable documentation on to attract Martins as well as a catalog of useful purchases.

A book list is below…

Reference List
1. Allen, R. W. 1952. A study of the breeding biology of the Purple Martin (Progne subis). American Midland Naturalist
47(3):606-665.
2. Baicich, P. J. and C. J. Harrison. 1997. A guide to the nests, eggs, and nestling of North American birds. Second edition.
Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.
3. Bent, A. C. 1942. Life histories of North American flycatchers, larks, swallows, and their allies. United States National
Museum Bulletin. 179:83-91.
4. Brown, C. R. 1997. Purple Martin. A. Poole and F. Gill, editors. The Birds of North America. No. 287. The American
Ornithologists' Union and The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
5. Dinsmore, J. J., K. H. Thomas, D. Koenig, C. P. Petersen, and M. D. Roosa. 1984. Iowa Birds. Iowa State University Press,
Ames, Iowa, USA.
6. Finlay, J. C. 1975. Nesting of Purple Martins in natural cavities and in man-made structures in Alberta. Canadian Field-
Naturalist 89(3):454-455.
7. Kendeigh, S. C. 1941. Birds of a prairie community. Condor 43(4):165-174.
8. Lund, T. 1977-1978. The Purple Martin in the western United Stares, with special reference to Oregon. Oregon Birds (3):5-10.
9. Macnamara, C. 1917. The Purple Martin. Ottawa Naturalist 31(5-6):49-55.
10. Rising, J. D. 1974. The status and faunal affinities of the summer birds of western Kansas. University of Kansas Science
Bulletin 50(8):347-388.
11. Stewart, R. E. 1975. Breeding birds of North Dakota. Harrison Smith, Lund Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
12. Wolinski, R. A. 1995. Attracting martins: everything you need to know to attract purple martins to a new colony site. Bird
Watcher's Digest 17(4):80-84.
13. Ziegler, G. F., Jr. 1923. Notes on a Purple Martin colony. Auk 40:431-436.

At the urging of a friend I’m trying out a new online game called Khan Wars.  I’m not really into it, but I’ll let it be for now.

Over the past few years I've been asked a great many things about my ability to keep up with the latest happenings in the software development world.  For example I started learning programming with Pascal in the early 90s, then I moved to Visual Basic.  There wasn't a big fuss over me not really knowing Visual Basic when I took this assignment, it was just understood that I would buy a book and the next week I'd be programming.  No, it's not like Neo in the Matrix when he first learns Kung Fu...people just don't learn that way.  But what people are good at is taking something similar and then synthesizing those concepts to another situation.  I've often heard that an "if" statement is an "if" statement no matter what the language.  Sure it may have brackets or parenthesis around the phrase, but the concept is still the same.  Therefore, if you understand the basics of a programming language, many other languages are easily within your grasp.

Fast forward to an even more ironic day, when I was working for a training company teaching web development (originally I'd been hired to teach Visual Basic) and we just went through a round of lay offs.  Management was showing a slide deck of the "new" organization when my name appeared not only by the web development instruction team but also under a team which I had real world exposure but had not dreamt of teaching.  True to the cause, I taught the course in less than two weeks.

So how'd I learn all the information?  I have to admit every day I read at least one article related to technology.  After the course of a decade these small commitments add up to thousands of articles read and a huge breadth of knowledge acquired.  But I've been able to go even farther this year.  I started listening to Podcasts of software development gurus as well as management gurus on my drive into work.  This allows me about an extra hour of learning that was normally spent on the senseless rants of Kansas City disc jockeys.

In summary, I’m offering a few methods to maximize your learning potential.  First, you just have to display the guts to learn (pick up the book).  Second, put yourself into situations where you have no choice but to learn.  And lastly, find ways to build knowledge both cumulatively, and in your down time.

Good Luck and Happy Learning!

I'm attempting something new tonight.  I've been wanting to add code samples to my web site but haven't had much success with most methods.  Screen shots look the prettiest, but don't try it unless you want a whole lot of readers ticked off about not being able to copy and paste your code.  My dream is to be able to easily post code samples and accept comments and suggestions. 

The magic post that pushes my blog into the stratosphere is posted at the following link.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BestCodeSyntaxHighlighterForSnippetsInYourBlog.aspx

My wife is an amazing woman, who's quickly becoming a Geekette.  You know the type...always helping family members with computer problems, converting Word 2007 docs to Word '95 and still cooking dinner by 6:00.  I'm afraid it's going to take some serious convincing to get my wife to wear it out in public!

The shirt was a handout from Microsoft's Professional Developer's Conference, among other cool SWAG.

Lily Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park is a small lake with some nice trout fishing available.  The trail around the lake branches off in a couple places, including a 500 foot jaunt up a small mountain.  My kids particularly like that mountain as it’s an easy climb that will make any five year old feel like an accomplished mountain man. 

My first visit in 2007 didn’t yield any indication as to why the lake would be called Lily Lake…last year that all changed.  I found a small patch of purple, blooming lilies near the water’s edge.

On a lonely morning at Lily Lake, outside of Estes Park, Colorado this little guy was the only one shreiking about.  Even the usual variety of ducks were calm, but this guy had something to say to everyone.  I really didn't want to get too close as this tough bird, was willing to take on anybody.  I stayed safely away with my 85-300 telescoping lense maxed out on distance. 

Funny thing about this photo is that the subject isn't really cute, dramatic or inspiring, just ticked off that someone's even around.  Reminds me of another web site that I visit from time to time... www.despair.com  Along those lines, what would be a good title for this picture? 

Sometimes pictures just line themselves up right. This is one of those photos where kids just jump into an activity and there's no wrong way to shoot it. This photo was again taken at the Deana Rose Homestead in the Milking Barn. No way would this kids' Grandpa let him milk a cow like that, but what really makes this pic special is the little girl just staring on. This is one of those pictures that just makes people smile.

Taken with a Canon EOS 10D.

• Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec.
• Lens Aperture: F/4
• Focal Length: 17mm
• ISO Speed: ISO-100
• No Flash
• Exposure Compensation -1 step

UPDATE:  In hindsight, I wish I would have had a faster ISO and that would have given me more light and definitely no exposure compensation!

Taking decents photos of large mountainscapes is difficult for a couple of reasons.  First, is the tendency is to have a poor sky, all bleached out or even bright white.  This can be an easy $30 fix with a neutral density filter.  With my 17-40mm lense (the glass portion is actually 77mm) I was able to obtain a nice blue sky and still maintain nice color on the trees.  Another trick is to meter off of the foreground then set the stage for the picture.  This photo could use some work with contrast on the rocks in the foreground, but I find the pool reflection gives this shot some extra feel.

Photo Specifications:

Shutter Speed:  1/125 sec
Lens Aperture: F/8
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO-100
Exposure Compensation 0 step

I finally did it I bought a T-ring and T-adapter for our telescope!  I haven't figured out how to use lenses into the mix yet, but I was able to hook up my Canon 10D directly to my telescope and take photographs.  I don't have any fancy mounting rigs, so I'm limited to somewhat short exposure times (less than a second or two) before the celestial objects move!  I did manage to get a fairly nice photo of the moon.  I'd like to try the moon shot as it gets a litter fuller, but the weather has just been downright terrible for view the Kansas sky.  Let me know if you got questions on this one!

At many stages in my professional career I have had exceptional mentors, but I've never had one ride to work with me on a daily basis.  For the past month the podcasts of the web site, www.manager-tools.com have provided insight into several management tools that I previously did not command.  I, definitely, don't rely on *just* podcasts to direct me and my team, but I do like the thoughts and discussions that this particular podcast has stimulated in my work place.

One of the tools that I have implemented in both my personal and professional life is the introduction tool that was released a couple of months ago, and has really pushed me to develop new relationships.  Plain and simple, I don't know how any one can afford to not subscribe to this podcast.

(BTW, I'm an avid Zune fan, too... the wireless synch is what sold me)

I have evolved into a MySpace user.

For my reader-base utilizing MySpace my profile is located:

www.myspace.com/siteconstrux

and my RSS feed (basically announcing that I've posted content on this web site or ForeverRemembering.com) is located here:

blog.myspace.com/blog/rss.cfm