Thursday, April 07, 2005

Changed blog

Hi guys. Blogger has been giving SO MANY PROBLEMS lately, with not letting me post when I need to, I've decided to migrate to SgDotNet's blog space. All of you can get my blog at http://community.sgdotnet.org/blogs/triplez. Rss Feed and ATOM Feeds are at http://community.sgdotnet.org/blogs/triplez/rss.aspx and http://community.sgdotnet.org/blogs/triplez/atom.aspx respectively. I'll be migrating my entire blog over there this weekend. I hope you guys continue to support me and update your feed links. Thanks!!!

Monday, April 04, 2005

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Articles

Here's a link to Patrick Tisseghem's Blog on some Sharepoint Articles.

http://blog.u2u.info/DottextWeb/patrick/articles/211.aspx

A few good articles to take note is the "Building Web Parts for Sharepoint Services".

An Object-Aware Memory Architecture

A paper published on February at Sun's site, by Greg Wright, Matthew L. Seidl and Mario Wolczko: An Object-aware memory architecture. Quoting from the abstract:

Despite its dominance, object-oriented computation has received scant attention from the architecture community. We propose a novel memory architecture that supports objects and garbage collection (GC). Our architecture is co-designed with a Java Virtual Machine to improve the functionality and efficiency of heap memory management. The architecture is based on an address space for objects accessed using object IDs mapped by a translator to physical addresses. To support this, the system includes object-addressed caches, a hardware GC barrier to allow in-cache GC of objects, and an exposed cache structure cooperatively managed by the JVM. These extend a conventional architecture, without compromising compatibility or performance for legacy binaries.

Advanced Personalization Services in ASP.NET 2.0

Advanced Personalization Services in ASP.NET 2.0 Part1

Advanced Personalization Services in ASP.NET 2.0 Part2

Advanced Personalization Services in ASP.NET 2.0 Part3

Summery: Learn about personalization, how to implement the first aspect of personalization features in your web applications using membership object provided by ASP.NET 2.0.

A fantastic article on Personalization in ASP.NET 2.0 by Khaled Hussein.

Enjoy.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Minimizing Applications

I've done this before so many times and I've always forget. It's high time I jot it down. Most of the times during startup applications, I want those applications to start up minimized, and usually these applications will minimize into the tray. So how do I do it? Very simply -

1) Right click on the shortcut
2) Click on Properties
3) Under Shortcut tab, change Run option to "Minimized"

As simple as that. I use it to load my Outlook during startup into the tray, and my Task Manager too! Well, mostly those 2 only. :)

Try it out. Task Manager is a MUST-HAVE during start up.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Finally! I can BLOG! Updates on SgDotNet!

Hey guys and girls! It's been so long since I blogged. Anyway I've been busy getting Community Server up and working for SgDotNet. The link for the new forums is http://community.sgdotnet.org/forums.

I'll be switching my blog as soon as I can figure out how to migrate all my posts here to the Community Server Blogs @ SgDotNet.

Well, anyway, my new blog url is @ http://community.sgdotnet.org/blogs/triplez. There's nothing up yet until I write the code to migrate. A lot of people I know are waiting for this migration code. Well, I'll try my best to write it this weekend.

I have to get the SgDotNet Website up ASAP, because we're having a meeting next thursday. I achieved something today with the website, I've fixed the Single-Sign-On issue between cross-sites, the website and the community server. :) I rock. Yeah I do! :)

Till next time, hopefully you'll see me in my new blog space. Cyaz!

Monday, March 28, 2005

Content Management System - Is creating one viable?

A friend of mine was telling about creating a commercial Content Management System is a good way to go. Then I was asking myself, why would I want to pay for a CMS which is so expensive, when I can get a CMS which costs $0, has online support, and many resources on how to set the system up.

One of them is the Mambo CMS created using PHP and MySQL which all runs on Apache. Here's a recent review on it.

Open source Mambo CMS succeeds admirably

All these are free. Another one of them is the DotNetNuke created using Visual Basic.NET and runs on IIS which isn't much of a CMS but there are modules to convert it into a CMS which can also interface with MySQL. The same goes with PHPNuke.

Just do a google search for "Content Management System Opensource" and you'll get back so many results. So now I ask you, why should I spend time creating my own, and selling it? One way to make money from CMS would be to take one of these Opensource free CMS, and provide the service of customising it for the client. It's much faster, reduces cost, and it's already easy and ready to use.

Now I want your opinion on this.

What's the rationale for creating your own CMS? Even if the rationale is that CMS is meant for big enterprise-level businesses, and most SME aren't really taking for it, as previously mentioned, there is the niche market there to push into. But why would I want to spend time creating a CMS from scratch, then customising it, then selling it?

And why should I as a businessman want to buy the CMS from Microsoft when it's so complicated, difficult to setup, and most of all, EXPENSIVE? Integration is one thing, but that's all I can see as the advantage, which I don't quite need really for CMS.

Comments please. :)

Discovered (??) CSS Hack - Loading Logos First

I've always had problems putting links on css backgrounds. For example, a simple logo like this.

<div id="logo">
<a title="SgDotNet For Cool Developers" href="/">
<span class="alt">SgDotNet For Cool Developers</span>
</a>
<div>

with the CSS...

#logo a { background: transparent url(../Images/logo/sgdn.jpg) no-repeat left top; }

The logo will render the background image LAST! Now, as a main website logo, we don't want that do we? We want it to be rendered first. So here's what I changed.

#logo { background: transparent url(../Images/logo/sgdn.jpg) no-repeat left top; }

This will render the background image FIRST, but the anchor is gone. This isn't what I need.

So this is what I did... I added both CSS in. And it renders FIRST, plus the anchor is still there.

#logo { background: transparent url(../Images/logo/sgdn.jpg) no-repeat left top; }
#logo a { background: transparent url(../Images/logo/sgdn.jpg) no-repeat left top; }

And this is all I did. It worked perfectly fine. If there's such a hack already discovered out there, please forgive me for my ignorance.

Hee, feeling proud I discovered this myself.

Friday, March 25, 2005

BrainGate - Science Fiction becomes Reality

Have you ever watched sci-fi movies that show interaction between computer and human just by thought alone? Or plugging into the computer through a jack like the Matrix?

It's becoming reality.

Check out the research here.

Cyberkinetics - Neurotechnology Systems, Inc.

Cool huh! Check out the demo video.

Google OS?!? And advice for Imagine Cup teams

For those participating in Imagine Cup 2005, I wished you would have given me something like this.

A Google OS by 2010?

I was just talking to another group of participants in IC2005 about an idea similar to that article up there, though it's not coupled to a specific OS. Apparently this article came up soon after. LOL. Great minds think alike.

You guys want dissolving boundaries? That is your ultimate idea. Why didn't anyone from Singapore think about that? Or something similar, or even something of the same granduer. Think grand scale, think innovation, think out of this world.

What was mentioned in the article is just waiting to be implemented, to be used, to be wide-spread. The idea has been going around since ages ago. We have webservices, we have SOA, we have the .NET Framework, we have Java, we have Linux. The technology is out there already. We're waiting for it to happen.

Come on people, I was very disappointed with most of your proposals that I judged. Apparently Singaporeans have very little ambition, and are quite polluted by the fact of marketing and business. Think of out the box, please!! I had an agonizing time reading all the proposals I got.

Anyway, I wish all of the teams who got into the Semi-Finals of Imagine Cup 2005 in Singapore all the best, and please go all out to impress.

A good idea is only good when you yourself are excited over it.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Accepted into University!!

Yesterday I just got news that I've been accepted to University of Waterloo. I did it!!

1 hour later, I got news that I've been accepted to University of Toronto @ Scarborough (UTSC) too!! Stress! Now I've got to choose which one.

Anyone knows which I should go? Anyone knows which is better? Stress!

And furthermore, now that I got in, I've got to consider about paying for my education. I'm wondering if there's any grants or scholarships around for my lowly results. Because all I see is scholarships asking for high A level results, with S-Papers and such. Oh well, I'll do my best searching for some $$$. Each university also has scholarships and grants over there. So I might be applying for those too.

Well, congratulations to me! WOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!