Chris Kirby's Inner Monolog : Blogs

Understanding the debate of Evolution vs Intelligent Design

Chris Kirby — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:44:00 GMT

I've been very interested in this topic since President Bush publicly offered his opinion that the, so called theory of intelligent design, is a viable and acceptable scientific alternative to the Theory of Evolution. And, if that wasn't odd enough, he wen't on to state that each topic should receive equal time in the science classes of our public schools. The affect of statements like these as well as pressure from Christian religious groups, have led to a much heated debate, primarily dominated by the idea of religion vs science. The debate went so far in Dover, Pennsylvania that it let to a federal court ruling blocking the unconstitutional attempts of the Dover school board to integrate intelligent design (a religious based idea) in to their classrooms.

The reason I bring this up now is that I've come across an excellent lecture by professor Ken Miller of Brown University in which he discusses this debate in depth. I believe that anyone who has ever considered this topic and its recent effect on our society, regardless of their views/opinions/beliefs, will find it quite informative.

[YouTube:JVRsWAjvQSg]

If you have trouble viewing the video, please visit the original post on youtube.

Insert source code plugin for Windows Live Writer

Chris Kirby — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:13:00 GMT

Last night, I finally got a chance to finish a workable version of my source code formatting plugin for Live Writer. The plugin isn't quite done yet, but as of now, will let you insert and format C#, VB, Javascript, Html, Xml, and T-Sql, very similar to the functionality available in the Wookie Blog Extension v2 which is also based on the original source code from Jean-Claude Manoli's CSharpFormat project. As for the cross posting support, the api just isn't there yet...so far, there is only support for content based plugins, but I'm assuming they will add support for more integrated plugins in future releases. You can grab the code plugin using the link below...and, to install, just drop it in your Live Writer plugins directory.

Insert Source Code Plugin Beta 1

dotNetWookie now running CS 2.1

Chris Kirby — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:26:31 GMT

dotNetWookie.com is now up and running with Community Server 2.1!

Wookie users...dont' forget to check out all of the new features and skins available.

CS 2.1 goes gold...Beta site up and running

Chris Kirby — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:23:00 GMT

The dotNetWookie beta site is now running Community Server 2.1! The most noticeably feature right off the bat, is the new Tags feature...Tags have replaced blog categories, and are a great way to quickly find the most popular and relevant content in any section of the site. And, perhaps a not very noticeable feature, but important to me, Feedburner support! For a complete list of new features, check out the announcement at communityserver.org.

The upgrade to the main site should be happening sometime this week...just have to do a few migration test runs and some skin tweaking first.

Windows Live Writer unleashed.

Chris Kirby — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:10:04 GMT

A few days ago, Microsoft released beta 1 of a new live product called Windows Live Writer. Its essentially an offline blogging tool that works with live spaces, or any other popular blog platform, out of the box.

For nearly 2 years now, i've been writing my own blogging tools, simply because there werent any out there which had the features I was looking for...until now. Live writer not only has many of the features i need (support for community server, photos, ftp, ping), but has excellent plugin support via their api as well. So, to get Writer just the way i like it, i've already started working on cross-posting, and code formatting plugins to fill is some of the blanks. Once completed, Live Writer should replace the Wookie Blog Extension as my primary offline blogger. Though, I don't plan on killing WBE entirely, future versions will just shift from an all-in-one, to more of an addon to Writer.

The original Pain Train

Chris Kirby — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:28:58 GMT

Ever wanted to know all about the man behind the ass kicking? Well I just got this link off of Brian's site...and holy ***, is it funny!

"Chuck Norris was born in a log cabin that he built with his bare hands."

"Chuck Norris does not love Raymond."

_{(excerpts from chucknorrisfacts.com)}

Office 2007 beta 2, just good

Chris Kirby — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 17:53:00 GMT

There's way too many new features in Office 2007 b2 to talk about them all, but there are a few that really stand out. First off, I've got to mention the interface...wow, is it a major change, and wow, is it a welcome and surprisingly intuitive one! I can now finally say that my mom can even use this version (sorry mom ;). No more menus to confuse people, just the functionality you need laid out right in front of you...I don't care how many online office apps Google comes up with (calendar, spreadsheet), they just can't touch this interface. So, not only does it look good, but the new integration features have happily surprised me as well. The things I've noticed the most are that Outlook now allows you to publish your calendar to Office Live, Word supports publishing documents directly to your weblog (via metaweblog...no category support yet), and all the apps are tightly integrated with Sharepoint 2007 b2. I have yet to install it, but I definitely plan on checking it out soon. The only beta app I'm holding off on checking out is Exchange 2007 beta 2 ...I'll wait until the final on that one, I just can't risk trashing the email server.

Office Beta 2 is free for anyone to check out...just sign up here, download, and activate. And, as with Vista, I havent noticed any major bugs while running in XP sp2 over the past 2 weeks...just keep in mind that the word and excel file formats have changed for 2007, so when sharing docs with other users, you'll have to do the old 'save as' before sending it off.

Get the most out of Master Pages

Chris Kirby — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:06:00 GMT

<<	Master Pages: Tips, Tricks, and Traps

MasterPages are a great addition to the ASP.NET feature set, but are not without their quirks. This article will highlight the common problems developers face with master pages, and provide tips and tricks to use master pages to their fullest potential.

This article really digs in to the inner workings and advance usage of Master Pages. I took quite a few useful things from it...definitely a great read for any .net developer.

The schema and service versioning dilemma

Chris Kirby — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:49:31 GMT

<<	Solving the XSD versioning problem

I would agree, as with most xml and web service developers, that schema and service versioning is a major pain in the ass. In this post by Tim Ewald, he discusses a way to approach this by using a more in-depth approach to validation. The way most of us approach this is simply by throwing the document up against latest known schema, and, if it errors, then the data must be invalid. Well, as well all know, that is usually not the case. Most likely, the document may have been created with a different version and simply contain some minor variations, which, in the end, may not even apply to the data we care about. In those scenarios, his solution suggests that we just get a little more detailed with our validation process...basically ignoring elements we dont understand or care about during validation, and only hiccup a validation error to the sender when its obvious that required data is missing. To my surprise, this type of, per element, validation meta data, is already built into the xsd specification and should be supported by xml processors in .net. I'll definitely look forward to checking out his implementation when he posts the code.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Final

Chris Kirby — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:27:00 GMT

The final build of the Wookie Blog Extension v2 is now available under Current Releases in the Files section. This version just addressed some minor issues that came up with beta 2 and now includes a native MSN Spaces plugin with the installation. You can view the complete release notes over in the discussion forums.

All of the plugins are also available for independent download under Plugins in the Files section, including the project files and source code for the Community Server and MetaWeblog plugins.

** update ** I've just updated the rtm installer package with the new Blogger plugin, as well as uploaded the Blogger plugin source and assembly for seperate download.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Beta 2

Chris Kirby — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:03:00 GMT

Beta 2 is now available over in the Files section, and is finally feature complete as of this release. I posted the release notes and a new FAQ to help answer some questions over in the forums.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Beta 1

Chris Kirby — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:29:00 GMT

I've just posted Beta 1 of the new Wookie Blog Extension over in the files section of the site under Beta Releases. Not all of the features I wanted are in there yet but its getting close. I've also posted a release candidate of the IBlogConnection interface, which is used to develop plugins for the blog extension. With the beta, I've included MetaWeblog and Community Server 1.1+ plugins which were working well during testing. MSN Spaces is also supported via the MetaWeblog plugin but I will have a dedicated plugin with the next release due to a few quirks. You can view the release notes over in the forums for more detailed info.

My primary goal with this app was to develop an offline blogging tool/rss aggregator blog extension that would allow me to post rich content to my primary blog as well as syndicate that same content to my various other unused blogs. For example, this is my primary weblog where i currently post all of my (mostly boring) content; I also have an MSN space, because I use msn messenger, and I have a Google Blogger account from a while ago. With this new app, I'm now able to post that same blog entry to all all my blogs (via plugins) simultaneously, notify the various ping services that all sites have been updated, and append the syndicated post with a message directing the reader to my primary blog. To some, this might seem like overkill, but i just think its cool ;)...that, and I wanted something fun to do with winforms 2.0 in my spare time.

Click here to check out some screen shots over in my gallery.

Viagra, Levitra, or Online Gambling anyone?

Chris Kirby — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:43:00 GMT

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I've not been a victim of comment spam until now...but when the spammers decided to hit me, they held nothing back. I'm guessing its because my feed now support rss comments since the site upgrade a few days ago, but I could be wrong.

So, in attempt to combat this, I've enable some of the included spam blocking features that ship with CS 2.0 and I'm hoping that will alleviate most of it. My only concern is that it doesn't inhibit legitimate posts, so hopfully finding a balance wont be too difficult. If anyone else has suggestions on this feel free to let me know.

New dotNetWookie.com

Chris Kirby — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 22:57:00 GMT

The new site and domains are now live!

Be sure to check out the new Files and Roller sections, and for users, the new Reader, Control Panel, and a whole lot more.

** update - Forgot to mention the cool new blog skins that were added during the upgrade. BlackSun, ClearSky, FoggyValley, and WhiteNight. And, a new source code highlight module was added...Just select Rich Editor for Developers as your default editor in your user profile.

New Wookie Blog Extension

Chris Kirby — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 18:41:00 GMT

I my spare time over the past few weeks, I've been working on the new Wookie Blog Extension v2.0. It's a totally new code base written from the ground up in .net 2.0. Unlike previous versions of the extension which primarily focused on rss aggregator integration, the focus of this version is to be more of an all in one offline blogging tool, while still building upon previous functionality. Needless to say, this is a lofty goal, and there are already some excellent offline editors like BlogJet and w.bloggar out there, but, unlike those editors, the wookie blog extension will still have full support for the IBlogExtension interface and focus more on the rich blog api's of platforms like community server. The architecture has already gone through several changes over the past 2 weeks, but here is the feature list as it stands now:

Totally redesigned interface, utilizing all the latest and greatest 2.0 controls.
New plugin api based on a new interface, IBlogConnection (more to come on this soon). So all blog api functionality (post,get,etc) will now come from independently developed plugins based on the new interface. So far, along with the interface, I've written both Community Server (1.1+) and Metaweblog plugins, both of which will be installed with the app.

This, in-turn, introduces a host of new features such as: Getting and viewing your x number of recent posts, viewing your rss feed, deleting an existing post, posing to multiple blogs on the same sever, and others.

New ability to configure and post to an unlimited number of blogs.
New native cross-posting support. For each new blog entry, you will have the ability to cross post to any number of your other configured blogs. Similar to the new cross-posting feature in CS 2.0 but with the addition of richer posting features, i.e. support for more than just metaweblog.
Xml-Rpc ping support for both the main and cross-posted blog posts.
Better spell checking
New Template designer. This will carry over all the existing functionality of the previous versions and add the ability to create and edit new templates from within the editor. (still have a lot to do on this one)
Possible more, but if i ever hope to finish it I will have to cut myself off at some point.

This could either be a really cool app or a steaming pile of blog shat... so i'm hoping for the former ;) I should be posting a beta soon so I can try and get some feedback.