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So a friend of mine has always wanted to create a networking based website (http://e-grafix.com/comm/[^]) to help others with their networking issues. After a bit of trolling around the net I suggested either looking at Community Server (CS) or Dot Net Nuke (DNN). DNN doesn’t natively have user forums as part of its package, and well is really more of CMS. So he ended up going with Community Server, now I didn’t spend a huge amount of time looking for forum packages out there. But all I have to say is WOW; CS is very, very cool.
Some of the features that make CS cool are, out of the box it supports two separate views, the default view is similar to a PHPBB2 board, eh which is nice enough, but the second view is very close to the way the forums here at Code Project render.
The paid for version supports NNTP access, and here I thought NNTP was dead. I can’t say how much I loved the old news groups; it’s just too bad you have to pay for access to news groups now.
While administration of the site isn’t always entirely clear, it’s mostly fairly intuitive enough.
I would continue on with a features list I like, but alas I just don’t have the time at this point. Take a look at it for your self. http://e-grafix.com/comm/[^] Community Server Site[^]
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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I just had a conversation with a friend of mine about the newish Fisher Price UIs in operating systems the other day. I think I hit the nail on the head or at least close enough so that his girlfriend (who is slightly techno phobic) understood. Let’s see if I can summarize the same thought process here.
The Fisher Price UIs are really an extension of the graphic user interface, a just a “continued refinement” there of. The less intimidating the UI is, the more it will appeal to people who are not only not techno savvy but those who don’t want to be technology savvy. Do they really help the end user accomplish what they seek out to do? They certainly feel less intimidating than using a command shell. I know this for sure as I use both green screen applications at work and windows apps and I find even Windows 95 a be a vast improvement over the green screens any day.
But do the Fisher Price UI’s really help at all? Working in a corporate environment one of the biggest challenges I see and experience on a daily basis is information management. Man what a pain it is to constantly flip through 50 or so excel / word documents on a daily basis to make notes or what ever for others to see and don’t get me started about trying to track information in Lotus Notes. What a segway I know; it seems that instead of making the UI simpler the same efforts could be put to better use on general information management; or conveying to customers (end users) better utilization of current information management systems.
One thing that is absolutely clear is that both end users and corporations are drowning in a vast ocean of information and there is no real way of keeping track of it all. 
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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Well for the first time in a number of years I’ve had to invest some time / thought into my website. My old hosting provider has decided to call it quits, not that I blame him he has enough on his plate already. So I’ve ventured out onto the wild web and found a place to host my site, which in all honesty is used more for email than anything else.
It didn’t take me to long to find a hosting site, and as it turns out there wasn’t any cost difference between Windows or Linux. So I jumped the Linux ship and got a Windows box with the thought that just maybe I might spend a few minutes here and there adding content / developing stuff for the site (hey it’s a worth a shot  ).
Now that I have everything set up, which was rather confusing as the hosting site is where I have my domain registered through. I have to say that there web based email interface is actually pretty nice. Domain management is rather a pain, but they do offer a bunch of free add-ons for the site which is cool. One of the add-ons was Dot Net Nuke, which seams to have a lot of very cool features & downloads just for it. Heck I’m half thinking about ditching the static pages I have now and converting everything over to the DNN side of the site.
First and foremost I have to figure out what all I want for content on the site. Which is proving to be rather difficult, I use the CP blog for whatever ramblings I have so that’s not really needed. Working with DNN isn’t too bad once you get the hang of it. If you’re looking for a CMS system then give it a shot.
That's all for now...
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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Where did you get the smiley banging his head against the wall? 
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Paul Conrad wrote: Where did you get the smiley banging his head against the wall?
Found it years ago, don't remember where any more. I should probably take that down, I'm sure Chris wouldn't be to happy seeing it there (not suppose to show pics in the forums yea know). link[^]
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S Douglas wrote: I'm sure Chris wouldn't be to happy seeing it there
He should include one similar. It would be great for homework problem posters and cross posters 
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Last Thursday (12/22/2006) I got a newer truck a White 2001 Chevy Silverado 1500 it’s a nice truck, but sure is different compared to my old 1997 Ford F150. It’s going to take some getting used to. 
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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Just looking over my little blog here and turns out I haven’t been posting much at all over the last few months. Soooooo here is what’s going on in my little world.
For the last two or three weeks my truck, a Ford F150 has been running rough. Thinking it was a maintenance issue I replaced the plugs and wires. Which actually solved the problem for about a day. Over the course of the next few days after that its performance continued back down hill. Then on Sunday as I was attempting to leave for work the truck just wouldn’t start. The starter tried to turn the motor over twice, but only ever made it a couple of revolutions. The second time it made a loud banking noise, thinking nothing of it as the noise sound more like the starter disengaging I continued a few more times trying to get it to start. The starter just wouldn’t turn the motor at all after that.
So I call it a night and had some come pick me up and drop me off at work. The following day during the daylight hours it was plain to see that my truck had developed a serious issue; the motor oil was no longer in the motor. I’m not entirely positive but it looks like the oil leaked out the side of the motor.
A very long story short its time to go hunting for a new truck as the cost of repairing a ten year old truck just doesn’t sound very beneficial. I have looked at new trucks here and there over the last couple of months, and have come to realize the don’t make a real pick up truck any more. They are cars with long cargo spaces on the back. 
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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Well Okay, not my first post, but my first post from my new server. Just finishing downloading updates & drivers for a new server I built, life will be good once its back up and running. It will be nice to be able to have access to my source code repository again.
Specs (absolutly nothing to brag about)
1.7G AMD
512 Ram
Drives
Main drive is only a 10gig, Im going to need to buy new drives looks like the ones I was using have all died
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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C++ Applications written in VS2005, may error out when starting up with the following error message.
“This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.”
I have seen this come up a few times in the message boards and experienced this issue myself as well. When distributing C++ applications written in VS2005, you will need to also distribute the updated run time DLLs, CRT which is the C Runtime and MFC Version 8.
If the computer is a Windows XP system, there is a new paradigm for dealing with DLLs. It’s called SXS (side by side) DLL support. In other words it allows the target computer to run multiple versions of the same DLL. This was done to eliminate DLL hell issues. What this means to you is, your app will now need an installer to add the new DLLs to the system.
On earlier systems such as Windows 2000, you will only need to distribute the necessary DLLs with your application.
More information about both the SXS and creating installers can be found below.
Redistributing Visual C++ Files[^]
Deployment Examples[^]
Running C++ application built by VC++ Express on another computer[^]
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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Lt Col. John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In Flanders Fields[^]
I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:
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Today was my second bike ride on the new mountain bike; it’s been two very long years since I have been biking and WOW am I out of shape. It’s going to take a lot of work to get back to where I was about three or four years ago.
Yesterday just to get used to the new bike I only rode for 2 miles, today it was 6. So providing it doesn’t rain tomorrow and I'm still not soar, I'm thinking I should go for 10 miles (I'm not trying to kill my self just get back into physical shape  ).
This is my first mountain bike with a front shock; wow does it really change the way a bike handles. I'm not convinced it changes the ride for the better or the worse. It’s just very different. One nice thing about the front shock on the Cannon Dale is I can lock it solid on the fly so the bike responds the way a bike should (well at least for my likings).
Ah it’s great to have three days off a week I tell yea!
Now all I need to do is spend some time in front of the computer, I had decided on learning .NET some time ago, but cant quite seem to muster up the energy do so. I have an old C# book targeting version 1.0 of the frame work, from what I have read thus far there is some pretty cool stuff in .NET. I will save that for another day.
Off to relax now…enough work for the day.
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Well I hunted and hunted around just couldn’t find a mountain bike I liked in my price range. So what did I do? I blew my budget, and ordered a new Cannon Dale F600, in brushed chrome. It should be here April 1st well let’s hope that no one decides to play a prank on me that day. I'm pretty stoked about getting a new bike. Now if only the weather will cooperate and stay above 40 F so I can go out riding… ![Jig | [Dance]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/jig.gif)
-- modified at 20:24 Monday 27th March, 2006
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I have finally found a computer related task I detest doing, I have a ton of photos that need to be digitized. What an insanely tedious process. I'm using a Scan Jet 4100C, that I purchased years ago, never really used it much except the occasional image or two but this is 6 rolls of pictures.
What makes matters worse is that the images that are being produced are not only low quality but also the scanning software keeps miss scanning (show just crud). 
Its to bad there wasn’t a way to completely automate this, I would be nice to just drop the pictures into some type of holder and let the scanner scan them one at a time. Saving the image produced. Oh well huh, better stop complaining about it and keep trudging along.
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Spring is almost here, and my current mountain bike needs a lot of work to get it back into ridding shape. So instead of spending a lot of money on an older bike I figured I would just buy a new one. I really hate shopping, its even worse with buying a bike, there are a ton of options and compromises (I don’t haven an unlimited budget for a bike).
So far the only bike I have found where I like the styling, is a Cannon Dale F600, but a thousand bucks is out of my budget.
If I can find a trek that’s not half bad I will just pick it up.
-- modified at 9:24 Sunday 19th March, 2006
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Well I haven’t been around Code Project much for the last week. I started a new job; recently that’s been keeping me very busy.
I'm now in a first line tech support role. All I have to say is as cool as some of the apps they have they sure like to do things as if they are in the Stone Age.
Oh well…
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[small rant]
Who is the mumbling moron who wrote the “HTML Help Workshop” must have been a lawyer? I'm trying to create a fairly simple HTML help file and this waste of not only CPU cycles but disk space is causing nothing but problems. When ever I create a nice ordered table of contents (TOC) it trashes it.
Will Microsoft ever give us (developers) a Help system that works and is easy to use? I don’t care how pretty it looks I just want something that works. If I wasn’t so dang busy I would create my own little system.
I would rather use IE .5 than this junk. At least I can use Programmers Note pad to create the needed files and compile it on the command line. Now what are those darn switches?
[/small rant]
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I said if I found anything useful in VS2005 I would comment on it, well believe it or not I did find something useful.
They added some useful features to the context menu while coding.
- With a class open if you right click and scroll to “Go To Header File”, it actually seems to always take you to the correct header.
- Again open a class scroll to Outlining, lots of useful stuff there mostly “Collapse to Definitions”
- I love the new (I think its new anyways) “Insert Trace Point” what a great idea!
- The “Find All References” is handy as well.
The new (for me its new anyways) way of creating menus is great! It makes creating menus even easier than VS6.
The class view filters seem to help, find what you’re looking for.
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There really isn’t any reason for this post beyond something I recently struggled with. I don’t think it’s really worth an article but it is worth having out there for others to see.
While recently working on a small dialog based application I needed to add a menu bar as part of the main dialog. Some of the menu options in that dialog needed to have multi state (a check mark). Now normally in a SDI or MDI application this is an easy task. You just need to handle the ON_UPDATE_COMMAND_UI and set the pCmdUI->SetCheck(Int value); to the correct value 0 for unchecked and 1 for checked. Pretty simple stuff right? Well as it turns out in a dialog based application this event doesn’t occur you need to handle ON_WM_INITMENUPOPUP() which happens when the menu gets created (when the user clicks / selects the menu this gets called) and dispatch the appropriate message.
See MSDN Knowledge abase article Q242577 or this (MSDN) Link[^] here, the code provided in the link works. Just plug it in and add the ON_WM_INITMENUPOPUP() message handler to point at that code and your ON_UPDATE_COMMAND_UI message handlers will work.
You cannot change the state of a menu item from its command user-interface handler if the menu is attached to a dialog box in Visual C++[^]
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Just made my 800th post... 
CP is a cool place...
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I got a copy of VS2005 Standard edition for attending the MS Visual Studio Launch party a few months ago. Well I'm finally getting around to writing something with it.
I'm tired of both Win Amp and Media player. Neither one of them have the one feature I really want. Which is a Queue; I really wanted an MP3 player that would work just like an old Juke box. Nothing terrible special so I figured that would be a decent little app to cut my teeth with VS2005. Under development MP3Caddy[^]
All I have to say is I'm very disappointed with VS2005; it’s taken a couple of steps back from VS6. About the only things they added to it for MFC C++ developers are a prettier interface.
What I dislike
- Adding / Managing Message maps in VS2005 is a joke. Why should I always have to go back and open the dialog / form to add a message map when I used to be able to do it from right clicking on the class it self?
- Where is the darn Class Wizard? The class wizard was a great way to manage variables. Why didn’t they improve upon its design instead of just nixing it
- It seems that the new tool for adding variables / member functions needs a lot of work, first it occasionally flakes out doest care what I choose for scope it adds it as something completely different. What’s even worse is when it does add the new item it creates a new protected, private, public label (I cant seem to recall the correct term for the scope operator so label will have to suffice) for it. Why not put the new variable / function in an existing label?
- Could the warning messages from the complier get any vaguer?
- The MSDN just flat out sucks! I like the UI, even though it’s slow as molasses in February.
- Macros, ugg I can’t seem to figure out how to record a macro (a non temporary one) I have little macro I use for adding comments, it formats them just the way I like. No more I guess.
- Release versions, sigh; don’t get me started. So in order to save end users from DLL hell we put developers through install hell. I just don’t get it, and I haven’t found anything that clues me it to the magic of creating installer packages. Well at least with distributing the MFC8.0 I can run my apps on Windows 2000 without a problem.
- Intelisence just sucks now, its more useless than the VS6 version. I wonder if Whole Tomato will make a version of their Intelisence for VS2005 for us C++ developers.
- Why is the code snippet library only available for C# and VB.NET?
- Why on earth can’t I double click on the very top title bar and have it switch from maximized / restore? Come on VS team take a look at the Windows UI standards.
- I better stop now before you get the opinion I hate VS2005, maybe I need to learn C# in order to better understand what is so great about VS2005.
What I like.
- The STL compiles without tons of warning messages.
- The complier is a lot stricter about what it accepts and its warning are more verbose.
- The tabbed interface.
- Auto hiding tool bars, even though they can be a royal pain. It’s still a nice feature.
If I find more I like / dislike about VS2005 I will try and update this. I'm sure others have a longer list of like / dislikes and they are probably in a better position to complain. I just needed to vent a little.
Why oh why can’t I drag a class onto the current document and have VS just figure out I want to use that as a member, and provide me a little input box to type in a name for it. Have VS do the necessary include and add it as a member variable. Now that would help (at least me).
I need a new sig, got one handy?
-- modified at 2:09 Thursday 26th January, 2006
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I just started using surfulater[^]by Neville (A fellow Code Project Member), what a very slick little application. It’s a very well designed and laid out.
Surfulater is a little knowledge base for webpages and anything else you can stuff into it (which is anything). A few years ago I wrote my own knowledge base to keep track of source code snippets and how tos but I think surfulater is going to be a solid replacement for it. It’s going to take some time to migrate all of that information from my knowledge base to Surfulater but it will happen.
Its speed and unobtrusiveness are its greatest features. Surfulater just works without waiting for it.
My only complaint is the database in which stuff is stored is a closed format. This isn't a big deal but I just like to see how things are stored and it would make it easier for me to migrate my information. Oh well.
My hats off to Neville surfulater[^]
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You just inspired me to check this out. Seems like a cool tool. I always thought from the title it meant surf a website later. Now I'm going to have to tinker.
So far I like your blog. Most people blog in such a boring way. Yours is good. It meanders a lot and I like that.
Some assembly required.
Code-frog System Architects, Inc.
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