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February, 2009:

.Net Hosting

Feb 26th, 2009
by Forrest.
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Today I created a Windows web hosting account so I could start testing my new CMS project.

The current version is extremely basic and lacking in content, but it works and is improving daily. The rendering engine is at a point where I am ready to begin connecting everything to the database. Once I get the content management system squared away, I will start on the admin panel.

Until I get the admin panel in working order, posting there will be mostly for testing purposes.

link: ForrestLedbetter.net

french bread pizza

Feb 24th, 2009
by Forrest.
4 comments

I made the best french pizza I have ever eaten tonight.

For about 5 minutes, saute on medium heat:
1 1/5 tbsp olive oil (I guess…I eyeball it, and try to keep it light)
1 medium portablello mushroom, sliced
2 small slices of onion
3 stalks broccoli
1 small diced clove of garlic
salt, pepper to taste

After the mushrooms have started to soften, drop in about a tablespoon of balsmic vinegar and cook for another minute or two, until the vinegar thickens a little.

Spread pizza sauce of your choice and/or making (post later on this) on the french bread slices. Top each half with your saute, followed by cheese (I used a pizza blend with some feta), and seasonings of your choice. I like to add paprika and cayenne pepper.

Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes, and then you get to eat this:

CLICK FOR SAMMICH

surprisingly not real bad for you french bread pizza

surprisingly not real bad for you french bread pizza

Launchy

Feb 24th, 2009
by Forrest.
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Launchy : The Open Source keystroke Launcher

I have found Launchy to be rather useful. You tap alt+space, type in what you are looking for (“youtube SomeStupidCatVideo”, “google Douglas Bubbletrousers”, “vlc /home/me/videos/AnotherStupidCatVideo.avi”, etc) and hit enter. Boom. No clicking, no looking for crap in menus. It is as simple as:
1. alt + space
2. “action” + space + “parameter”
3. enter

They explain it a lot better than I do, but I definitely have launchy on my “must install” list.

sharptube

Feb 19th, 2009
by Forrest.
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For the past week, I have been working on creating a content management system, using a template I found on oswd.org. As I was writing the boring stuff, I thought about several more interesting components I could create. The first thing that came to mind was an easy way to display a video from any of the more popular video sharing sites.

So I started this.. a YouTube player wrapper written in ASP.Net (C#). Yeah, I know… there is nothing earth-shattering about sticking some javascript in a usercontrol, but there is a lot more to come. I plan to add support for other popular video sites (hulu, vimeo, etc), as well as rendering options.

All currently available Youtube video parameters have been exposed as properties of the usercontrol. Once properties have been set, call initializeEmbeddedYoutubePlayer(). Grab the code folder for an example.

Whenever I get Amazon’s EC2 figured out, I’ll have it up for demo. Until then, I promise it works! You can download it and run the code yourself.

UPDATE: Link to Sharptube Example

http://code.google.com/p/sharptube/