UI Clients for back-end business processes; Can they be avoided?
August 10th, 2008Although I have been guilty of such in the past, I have to come to the point where I will avoid creating a UI client for a business process if it is at all possible.
Sharepoint is the new Lotus Notes.
April 28th, 2008Could their ever be a more flame-worthy title? Yet, what makes Sharepoint the new Notes is not only what is does well, but also what it does not do well.
A cure for the common user who does not read warning prompts
November 8th, 2007The warning prompt; the last ditch effort to make a user aware of an action they are about to take. Yet over the years we, as developers, have thrown up so many warnings, cautions, and advisories, that users really do not take notice. So how do you secure an application button from inadvertent clicking? Make them work for it.
Drag and Drop Data Entry
November 6th, 2007A recent need at work was to find a way for assist users in data entry tasks so as to help eliminate common data entry mistakes (transposition, wrong data, etc..). Although copying and pasting was the first thought, we eventually decided to use drag and drop technology.
Walter Zorn to the rescue again!
October 17th, 2007His vector graphics Javascript library is one of the easiest to work with and now Walter has surpassed himself with the easiest Tooltip / Help bubble javascript library.
Passing values to SQL server Triggers
October 1st, 2007Database triggers are a great thing, and using them to create an audit trail is pretty simple. Yet when you want to pass some custom values to the triggers, like user name when you are using a single DB login for your application, things get tricky.
Connecting to SQL server using different NT domain credentials
August 21st, 2007ASP.NET has a nice Impersonation feature that allows server-based web applications to use alternate credentials to perform network activities. Unfortunately, it does not extend into Windows “thick” clients; until now.
YUI New version with even more new features!
August 1st, 2007The Yahoo User Interface libraries are now at version 2.3.0 with six new features.
* Rich Text Editor
* Base CSS
* YUILoader
* ImageLoader
* ColorPicker
* YUI Test Utility
* Skins
I am hoping to get a chance to have some fun with this version when my time in SQL hell comes to an end.
Is AJAX.NET worth it?
June 22nd, 2007With our application go-live scheduled for this Monday, I am entering a retrospective mood on everything that we have accomplished, and the hurdles that hurt us. Although scope-creep is always the most painful hurdle, I would place the implementation model of Microsoft’s AJAX.NET as a solid second place pain in my butt.
“AndAlso”…VB.NET short circuiting oddity
May 23rd, 2007It comes as no surprise that Visual Basic frequently breaks away from traditional programming semantics, but the “AndAlso” short circuit conditional simply does not make sense.