App store in trouble

Looks like the $.99 pricing point of Apple's app store is cutting the competition so fierce that it may not allow developers to recoup the cost of making an app. More details using the following link: iPhone App Store Domed!

Pics of my new House

Barack vs. McCain - Dance Off

Folks, If you are like me, you are getting sick of all the campaign commercials on TV and the radio. All the candidates do is bash each other and its starting to makes me sick. At this point, I don't believe either side. But I found this campaign video that finally made me laugh.

Who would of though, Barack vs. McCain - dance off.

Now that is something to consider before going voting!

Halloween Party!

Hey everyone,

Here is a slide show of the Halloween Party from this past Saturday. Thank to all who made it. The rest; you miss a great time!

Samsung Instinct Phone Updates - MR4 Release

Public Release Notes for Instinct Firmware Update MR4Version: BJ20Delivery: OTAProjected Release Date: 11/12 (BOTH client & network initiated) Projected Release Dates are best estimates and are subject to change with no notice.Notes: Instinct firmware BJ20 includes the resolution of 165 tickets open since the previous public firmware release, BH29, including:

5442 - links fail on smoking gun website

5872 - VVM Client is not able to make Data connection

5886 - Ebay login fails in standard mode browser

6015 - Voice notification speaks wrong contact name

6016 - Device UI locks when FUMO push is being received

6025 - Initial Mobile Sync can cause device to slow down until initial sync completes6036 - bestbuy.com soft-resets device

6039 - deleting ringers can soft-reset device

The release also provides the foundation for the first public release of the updated Sprint Mobile Email Work Calendar. The new work calendar, available OTA 11/21, syncs with one or more Exchange (OWA) based calendars, and allows for meeting creation, editing and alerting on the go.

Also included in MR4:* Java refit to better enable 4-way/OK and text input to LCDUI widget-based applications. Yes, this is the Java Keyboard you've been waiting for.* support for native document viewing for many popular office document types including .doc, .pdf, .ppt, .xls and othersIndividual application upgrades for the MR4 period are expected to go live the week of 11/21 (all dates are estimates and are subject to change with no notice). Exact go-live dates depend on application vendor.

Source: http://forums.buzzaboutwireless.com/baw/board/message?board.id=Samsung_Instinct&message.id=22487#M22487

Not Just Another Object-Relational Mapping Service

All,

I wrote a blog post for my company's blog. You can read it my click this link: http://thefuturevalueofbusiness.com/not-just-another-object-relational-mapping-service.htm.

Happy Coding!

iPhone SDK and Xcode Tutorial

This site: http://icodeblog.com/ has the best iPhone SDK and Xcode tutorials.

I tried googling and searching the Apple website and found nothing that was of help to a beginner Xcode developer. Apple has done a poor job with releasing good documentation of the iPhone SDK or How-Tos/code samples to help beginners learn to write applications on their iPhone platform.

The creator of http://icodeblog.com/ has done a super job at creating blog and video based Xcode development tutorials that are geared to the VERY BEGINNER. They are easy to follow and they build!!!!

Give them a try and let me what you think.

I am successfully writing iPhone apps thanks to this site.

Have a great weekend,
Steven McWhorter

Latest Give Back Cincinnati Event!

Here are pictures from the latest GBC event I participated in. The organization helped clean up and paint different businesses and public places around the Norwood's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwood,_Ohio) business district. The pictures below are from the public pool that is on Montgomery road.

Give Back Cincinnati is a great organization that provides opportunity for young professionals to give back (pun intended) to the community. You can volunteer anytime with no pressure. Its all up to you.

Windows Without Walls

The new Microsoft commercials are out and I for one love them. I like how Microsoft defends the PC but does not attack Apple directly. Do unto others as you have others do unto you, or something like that right? Apple makes PCs look boring, limiting, and flat out stupid. We all know that’s not true. You can do a lot with a PC. Heck, I do a lot with my PC every day.

I blog, email, watch videos, organize my pictures and music, pay my bills, and program and design web sites. My world connected by bits and bytes are not limited because I don't use an Apple. Apple is a sexier machine then a PC right now. I admit it; they do look better. That's not Microsoft's fault. Tell DELL or HP or any PC manufacturer to tell their suppliers to make sexy PC cases and laptop shells. That might make PC lose its stuffy shirt and tie! I ofter hear, "Apple's just works better." That maybe true too but they do not have every hardware vendor in the work running on their operating system. Apple also doesn't have every hacker in the world trying to break it. Come on; you got to give Microsoft a little credit.

Anywho, PC and Microsoft and synonyms and if one sucks so does the other. Let’s hope change can happen and they both become better. At least the commercials are good!

Just watch it!!!

Role Based Security for ASP.NET Content Management

I found this article from the ASP.NET Daily Article blog and posting it on my site. Its a great solution for web application security down to the page element level. Please read!!!

"Designing a web based Information Management System poses a lot of challenges to developers. One of these challenges is how to provide the proper security to different users with different access to an application. Often times certain users will be allowed to update specific fields while others can only view them. It is essential to design for adequate security features in the presentation layer of your application." Source: http://microsoft.apress.com/asptodayarchive/74047/web-applications-and-role-based-content-rendering

New Give Back Cincinnati Event

Please click the following link http://www.givebackcincinnati.org/v3/events_details.asp?EventID=1220 and sign up for GBC's lastest and greatest event.

Norwood is a thriving and evolving part of Cincinnati which needs people to help her shine.

I will be there with bells on and so should you!

Cincinnati Code on Google Search

All,

I finally made it to number 4 on Google's search results for search string "Cincinnati Coder"!

I am sooooo happy. It took about 3 weeks for this to happen.

Just needed to get that out there!

Sorry for the useless post.

.Steven_McWhorter

XML Serialization

Nice article about how to Serialize and DeSerialize objects in XML.http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/article98.aspx. This is really handy when you want to make saving objects very versatile and not database dependent. Below is a list of additional reasons to use XML Serialization.

• Storing user preferences in an object.
• Maintaining security information across pages and applications.
• Modification of XML documents without using the DOM.
• Passing an object from one application to another.
• Passing an object from one domain to another.
• Passing an object through a firewall as an XML string.
• Source (http://www.dotnetjohn.com/articles.aspx?articleid=173)
  

To make objects serializable, I create an XSD schema that represents my object. You know, contract first, then code last.

Then I use a code generator that will generate a .NET class that makes my object XML serializable. Its called XSD Object Generator which is a plug in for Visual Studio. You can download the tool from here: http://weblogs.asp.net/jdanforth/archive/2004/09/18/231209.aspx.

Then you can create a XML serializer and deserializer helper classes. These classes will take an object in memory and serialize it to an XML stream or hydrate a XML stream to an object. I usually hook in a Database helper class and save the XML string to the database for later use.


Have fun! Let me know if this makes sense.

Samsung Instinct Phone Updates

All,

If any of you out there have the Samsung Instinct then you will be happy to here that Sprint is pushing updates to the Visual Voice Mail and Sprint TV applications today.

I don't know what the differences are yet. When I find out I will update this post.

Enjoy the Instinct. I know I am.

SQL 2008 is Released!!!!

SQL Server 2008 is one of Microsoft's best products ever. Me personally, I love it. Its fast, scalable, developer friendly (unlike Oracle), and worry free.

For a comprehensive list of new features and changes read this blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/chadboyd/archive/2007/07/26/katmai-sql-2008-the-list-of-new-features.aspx.

To learn more about SQL Server 2008 visit the TechNet site: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc434690.aspx.

.NET DataTable Select Experssions

Sometimes I like to get raw data from a database table and select information from it through .NET code. I use the SELECT() method and pass it an expression. The problem is I never remember what types of expressions are valid. So I am listing them here as I come across them. One thing to remeber. If your column names have spaces, use brackets around the column name.

*Column name with spaces
string filter = "[job grade] = '" + jobGradeRowsToUpDate[j]["JobGrade"].ToString() + "'";

* NOT IN (item 1,item 2,...)
DataRow[] jobGradeRowsToDelete = currentJobGradeData.Select("jobgrade NOT IN (" + newJobGradeID + ")");

* not equal <>
DataRow[] jobGradeRowsToDelete = currentJobGradeData.Select("jobgrade <> '1'");

Other
Expression Operators
The list of supported operators is somewhat small:

Math Operators:

+ (addition)
- (subtraction)
* (multiplication)
/ (division)
% (modulus, the remainder after division)
String Operator:

+ (concatenation, joining strings)
Comparison Operators:

< (less than) > (greater than)
<= (less than or equal to) >= (greater than or equal to)
<> (not equal to)
= (equal)
IN (compare to a list of items)
LIKE (pattern matching)
Scalar Functions:

Convert (change from one data type to another)
Len (return the length of the string)
IsNull (test for null)
IIf (Immediate If)
Trim (trim white space from string)
Substring (return a part of a string)
Aggregation Functions:

Sum (Sum)
Avg (Average)
Min (Minimum)
Max (Maximum)
Count (Count)
StDev (Standard deviation)
Var (Statistical variance)

**Source: http://home.hot.rr.com/graye/Articles/ADO_Expressions.htm

Edit Template in GridView Control

Some times you may want to edit items in a GridView control but you don't want every column to be editable. To do this you need to set the READONLY property to false.

ex)asp:boundfield visible="false">"

The columns that you want to edit you need to create a
instead of using the and set the contorls (one to manage the data and one to enable the edit row index by postback) that will handle the edit in the . In the example below, I have a which will handle the edit and a to postback and edit the GridView.
EditIndex property. You will have to rebind the grid for the edit template to display. Below

Ex)
"

<asp:BoundField ReadOnly="true" DataField="PPemployeeid" HeaderText="EMPID" SortExpression="PPemployeeid" HeaderStyle-ForeColor="Black" HeaderStyle-Wrap="false" ItemStyle-Wrap="false" ItemStyle-Width="50px"/>



Functional Title


Edit









"

--Code Behind--

protected void lkbEditFT_OnClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.gvData.EditIndex = 2;
this.gvData.DataSource = myData.Tables[0];
this.gvData.DataBind();
}

The grid should look like this after postback