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