Don’t Use Your ISP Email Address

Posted on by Josh

Every internet service provider (ISP) that I’ve ever used (or anyone I know has used) provides you with an email address. It’s usually how you log into their website to access your account information, pay bills online, etc, so it makes sense that they do this. However, I’m going to take a stand and say dont’ use it!!!!

Switching ISPs

You might be asking “why not?” Well, the only reason you really need is the fact that you might switch ISPs at some point in the future. If you switch ISPs, what happens to your email account? Some ISPs might let you keep it, but it’s not really in their best interest to provide that service when you’re no longer paying them on a monthly basis. As anyone who has done it can attest, it’s a pain to change your email address.

Think of the hundreds of friends, family, websites, retailers, etc. that use your email address to communicate with you. Do you really remember every important website or service that you registered your email address with? They probably include your bank, utilities, social networks, shopping websites like Amazon.com, entertainment services like iTunes and Netflix, your college or school, your employer, various reward/loyalty clubs for stores, and the list goes on. If you switch ISPs, you’ve got to log in to each account and update your email address. What a pain!

Feature Limitations

I have yet to see an ISP’s email services match the feature set of top webmail services like Gmail.

IMAP vs POP3

Email services from many ISPs only support the POP3 standard instead of the IMAP standard. IMAP allows you to sync your email across multiple devices like your smartphone, desktop PC, laptop, tablet, etc. Any change you make on one device, such as deleting a message, will be reflected on all of the other devices. It also supports most email functions like moving messages into folders.

POP3 is more limited; it simply downloads a copy of an email when you open it on a device and either deletes it from the server (so it is only accessible on the device you first viewed it on) or leaves a copy on the server (so when you delete it from the device you viewed it on, it will actually still be on the server and all of your other devices). Continue reading →

My Impression of Bias Lighting

Posted on by Josh

Several years ago I was shopping around for a new HDTV to splurge on. I spent months pouring over reviews on CNET, reading threads on AVS Forum, and walking around Best Buy to find the perfect HDTV. I found AVS Forum to be the best resource of good information because you could ask specific questions, and there was most likely someone on the forum who could answer it based on personal experience (and who knew what the heck they were talking about unlike most retail employees).

During that search, I came across the concept of bias lighting.  This is not the colored ambient lighting crap that some TVs use as a marketing gimmick—colored back-lighting actually screws up your perception of contrast, color tone, etc. This is the lighting that professionals use with a professionally-calibrated monitor so they can edit video. I could go off on a tangent about why I prefer to see movies the way the director and editor intended, but I’ll save that for another post…

The basic idea with bias lighting is that you reduce eyestrain and perceive contrast better if there is a small amount of light behind the TV or monitor that you are watching. I won’t get into the specifics, but suffice to say that you shouldn’t throw any old lamp or cold cathode behind your TV. If you want to read more about the concept, here are a few links to get you started:

I always wanted to get a bias light for my TV, even though I never had it professionally calibrated, because I always liked the idea of having a little bit of light in the room at night rather than burning my retinas with a bright image in a totally dark room, and most lights cast reflections on the TV screen that are very distracting during darker scenes. As fortune would have it, I moved into a new apartment recently and it has no built-in lighting in the living room, but it does have a switched outlet right next to my TV. This was the last bit of motivation for me to finally get a bias light. The thought of adding a little light to the room while improving the TV viewing experience at the flick of a switch is very appealing, don’t you think? Continue reading →

Display Events from a SharePoint Calendar Using jQuery and FullCalendar

Posted on by Josh

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Building a Better SharePoint Calendar

As part of a large department site redesign project, I wanted to implement a better calendar solution than what MOSS 2007 gives you OOTB. I remembered coming across the FullCalendar jQuery plugin a while back, so I decided to try using it with the calendar on my department’s site. I haven’t tested this in SharePoint 2010, but it should work just fine regardless of the version (just verify all of the column references in case any of them are named differently).

Prepping the Resources

I downloaded the latest FullCalendar package, unzipped the file, and uploaded the CSS and JavaScript files to a document library on my site. I like to use a library called WebResources and add a choice column with options for “CSS,” “Image,” “JavaScript,” and “jQuery” so I can keep track of all of my various resources in one place, with versioning.

Screenshot of FullCalendar Resources in the WebResources Library
I keep all of my resources in a "WebResources" document library grouped by the type of resource.

Once the files were uploaded, I copied the calendar.aspx page and renamed it CalendarCustom.aspx in SharePoint Designer (SPD). Then I switched back to the web UI, went to the calendar settings, and modified the duplicate “Calendar” view so I could rename it and set it as the default (this is the view that will contain our custom calendar). Next I opened that view and hid the default list view web part for the calendar.

The last step in prepping the page was to open it in SPD and add references to the CSS and JavaScript files that the calendar will need just below the <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server"> tag on the page (you could also put them in a Content Editor Web Part):

Screenshot of CSS and Script References for FullCalendar
Load the CSS and JavaScript references on the page. This can be done in a Content Editor Web Part, but I prefer to add them in the PlaceHolderMain section.

Setting Up the Data View Web Part

To make this happen, I used a Data View Web Part (DVWP) to output the necessary JavaScript for the plugin to generate the calendar. I selected the web part zone and inserted a new DVWP. I chose the Calendar list as my data source, selected the Title field and inserted it as a “Multiple Item View.”

Screenshot of Calendar Data Source Displayed as a Multiple Item View
Insert a DVWP with the calendar as the data source, and insert the Title field as a "Multiple Item View."

I didn’t want to bog down the browser by loading hundreds of really old events, so I set a filter on the DVWP so that only events with a start time greater than or equal to today minus 90 days would be displayed (see this post for more information on setting up CAML query offsets). This allows people to view events up to three months in the past, as well as current and future events. I also sorted the events by start time in ascending order.

Continue reading →

Access Ubuntu VM Files from a Windows Host

Posted on by Josh

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series WordPress Development Environment

I do most of my WordPress development using a test environment that I installed on a Ubuntu Virtual Machine (VM). This let’s me play around as much as I want without any risk to my production website or my computer; everything is contained within the VM, and it costs me nothing because I only use open-source and/or free software (read about it at http://wp.me/p1iF71-4x).

However, I prefer to do the actual development and testing from Windows 7 because I prefer using it to any other OS. While my VM is running my WordPress installation, I can access the files from my Windows host OS and use development tools like Notepad++ to access the WordPress files via my home network.

To accomplish this, Ubuntu will need to install a sharing service so Windows can “see” it using the virtual network adapter. When we’re finished, the VM will appear to be just another computer on the network.

Enable Sharing

First, navigate to opt/lampp/htdocs and right-click on the wordpress folder. Select “Sharing Options” to open the Folder Sharing window.

Select "Sharing Options" for the wordpress folder.
Select "Sharing Options" for the wordpress folder.

Check the box for “Share this folder” and click the Install Service button when prompted. You’ll need to enter your password. Continue reading →

Organize Series Plugin for WordPress

Posted on by Josh

I just installed the Organize Series plugin for this site. Right out of the box it comes with everything needed to organize related blog posts into a “series” of posts with a specific order. I’ve seen this on a lot of other WordPress sites when people do a series of articles about a specific topic. Some of my blog posts are rather long, and I’ve been wanting to post more frequently, so I think this will help because I can link several short posts together into a series rather than spend several days writing a single long post.

I retroactively organized my console emulator posts into a series. They were written specifically as a series, but at the time I didn’t have the means to link them together other than adding a “part 1, part 2, etc.” to the title of each post. Now if you view any one of the posts, you’ll see a message at the top of the post indicating that it is part of a series. The end of the post also includes links to the other posts in the series.

Table of contents for the Installing and Using Console Emulators series
The Organize Series plugin displays a table of contents for the series at the end of each post in the series. With a little CSS I was able to make it fit right in with my theme!

The plugin includes its own CSS for styling the messages and table of contents, but I decided to integrate it more tightly with my “Glass” theme. Fortunately the Organize Series plugin provides a lot of flexibility in modifying the markup of the messages and table of contents. I was able to include my own HTML5 markup and CSS hooks for the plugin. Now it generates an <aside> element for the list of posts in the series and a <nav> element to move forward and backward in the series that I styled to match my overall theme.

Take a look at the link above and let me know what you think; I think it turned out pretty good! When I have more time I’ll probably ditch the auto-generated series information and insert the template tags directly into my theme so I have some more control over how it’s rendered. For now, however, the plugin does a great job with the OOTB options.

Use TinyMCE as the Rich Text Editor in SharePoint Forms

Posted on by Josh

The default rich text editor (RTE) in SharePoint® 2007 doesn’t quite cut it in my opinion, and here’s why:

  • It’s based on an ActiveX control, so it only works in Internet Explorer. This alone is reason enough to replace it.
  • When creating a multiple line of text column in a custom list, you can only choose between “Plain text,” “Rich text,” or “Enhanced rich text” as the format for the column—not a lot of options. What if you want your users to have access to headings or other HTML elements?
  • It generates horrible, deprecated code: 
    <DIV>Look at how <EM>bad </EM>this HTML is! If I start <SPAN style="color: #ff6600;">coloring things </SPAN>it gets really messy. I try to make sure I'm not getting too crazy with the content, but many users will select <SPAN style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">their own fonts</SPAN>, <SPAN style="font-size: small;">sizes</SPAN>, <SPAN style="background-color: #33cccc;">colors</SPAN>, etc. instead of keeping things simple, which makes the markup even worse.</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>Why does it use &lt;div&gt; tags instead of &lt;p&gt; tags? Why are the elements in all caps?</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="color: #ff6600; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><STRONG>Now if I try to make an entire section formatting differently, it gets weird with &lt;font&gt; tags and &lt;span&gt; tags.</STRONG></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="color: #000000; font-size: xx-small;">&nbsp;</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="font-size: xx-small;">Users probably don't know about the Clear Format button, so when they want to add "normal" text after their crazy colored, centered, bolded text, they try to match the normal text with even MORE direct formatting.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="font-size: xx-small;">&nbsp;</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="font-size: xx-small;">Now try using this content in a branded site and see if your CSS holds up. Let a user edit this a few times and you'll have nested &lt;span&gt;s all over the place with all kinds of formatting.</SPAN></DIV>
  • Even the Full HTML RTE that you get on Publishing Pages (or if you create your own site column of this type) generates the same kind of markup. You have a few more options, like selecting basic HTML elements (paragraphs, headings, address, etc.), but you still can’t customize what appears.

A decade ago this RTE would have been really cool, but in today’s standards-compliant, feature-rich web, it just doesn’t hold up.

Enter TinyMCE, an open-source RTE with tons of customization OOTB, and even more thanks to numerous plugins (you can even write your own plugins if you need something that it doesn’t have). In this post I’ll show you how I replaced the SharePoint RTE with TinyMCE on my custom list forms using a little jQuery.

Note: This isn’t a tutorial about using TinyMCE for all rich text editing in SharePoint; it shows you how to use it on a per-form basis. Continue reading →

Thoughts on SPTechCon Boston 2011

Posted on by Josh

I just got back home from SPTechCon in Boston, and I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on it while they are still fresh. This was my first in-person attendance at a SharePoint conference, and I have to say I had a great time!

Location

Having the conference in Boston was cool, because I got to leave Phoenix for a few days and experience a new city. The sights, the sounds, the food, the accents are all a fun cultural experience. To me this is not a trivial aspect of a conference. If I’m going to SPTechCon or any other conference, I want to make sure I take time to see more than just the inside of the hotel while I’m there.

View from the Sheraton Boston
The view from my hotel room. Boston is a beautiful city.
Dinner at McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant‎
The local seafood cuisine was excellent!

Staying at the Sheraton in downtown Boston was a treat as well. The hotel itself had nice rooms, a courteous staff, and good facilities for hosting the sessions, lunches, keynotes, and exhibits. It was located near a lot of great restaurants, bars, and shopping. I could walk to the train in less than 5 minutes, and the cab ride from the airport was less than 20 minutes.

Continue reading →

SharePoint Contextual Search – Updated

Posted on by Josh

In a recent project created a page that features several Data View Web Parts pulling information from multiple lists within the site to create a dashboard-like experience. The stakeholders also wanted to be able to quickly search within each list, so I decided to include a custom search box at the top of each data view web part.

At first I thought I could use my custom search box that I wrote about in a previous post. The problem with that solution is that the JavaScript I created only works for a single search box because the ID is hard-coded into the functions. Therefore I modified the function to accept an ID attribute so it would accommodate multiple search boxes on the same page.

Updated Script and HTML

Here is the updated script:

// Search for the terms when the Search button is clicked

function customSearch(inputId,type,site,scope) {

	var searchUrl = site + "/_layouts/OSSSearchResults.aspx?" // Or "/_layouts/SearchResults.aspx?" if WSS 2003 or SP2010 Foundation
	var searchTerm = "&k=" + document.getElementById(inputId).value;
	var listParams = "&cs=This%20" + type + "&u=" + scope;
	window.location.href = searchUrl + searchTerm + listParams;
}

// Initiate the customSearch function when the Enter key is pressed

function searchKeyPress(buttonId,e) {
	// look for window.event in case event isn't passed in
	if (window.event) {
		e = window.event;
	}
	if (e.keyCode == 13) {
		document.getElementById(buttonId).click();
	}
}

Continue reading →

Create a Shortcut to Start XAMPP in Ubuntu

Posted on by Josh

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series WordPress Development Environment

I do most of my WordPress development using a combination of VirtualBox and Ubuntu. Over time I’ve developed a few simple tips that make my workflow a little more efficient, so I wanted to share them with anyone else who read my previous tutorial on setting up a VM as a WordPress development environment.

Running VirtualBox takes up a significant amount of RAM, so I like to shut it down when I’m not using it. XAMPP needs to be manually restarted the next time I use the VM, which can be a little tedious after a while.

To get around this, I created a simple launcher (i.e. a shortcut for us Windows folks) on the Ubuntu desktop for the Terminal command to start XAMPP. This way I can start it with just a double-click of the mouse instead of launching the terminal and typing in the command. If you want to create a similar launcher, follow these steps:

  1. Right-click on the Ubuntu desktop and select “Create Launcher.”
  2. Select “Application in Terminal” for the Type.
  3. Enter “Start XAMPP” for the Name (or enter whatever you want to call your shortcut).
  4. Enter “sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start” into the Command field.
  5. Click OK.
Create Launcher
Enter the XAMPP startup command to create a launcher for it.

Now your laucher for XAMPP will be on the desktop and save you a few clicks and keypresses when you need to start it up. If you have any other suggestions leave them in the comments!

Android + Dropbox + KeePass + LogMeIn + Carbonite = Mobile Sync Awesomeness

Posted on by Josh

I’ve been wanting to write this blog post for a while, but I kept putting it off to focus on SharePoint stuff and my updated WordPress theme (I’ll be posting about my updated theme soon). I was a little late to the smartphone party, but last year I finally picked up my first smartphone—a Droid Incredible. Because I’ve had such a great experience using it with these programs, I wanted to share it with others. This is geared toward Android™ users, but most of this stuff will work on iPhone® too (Windows® Phone 7 and Blackberry® users are on your own—and if you own a Blackberry, I’m sorry…).

Android + Dropbox + KeePass + LogMeIn + Carbonite
Android + Dropbox + KeePass + LogMeIn + Carbonite = Mobile Sync Awesomeness!

Most of these programs and apps are free, but there are a couple that you’ll need to pay for. If you want a totally free solution, you can still get a lot of value out of this solution even without the paid apps/software. Continue reading →