Darkfalz.com

I recently did a quite launch of a new site venture I've taken on. Swing over to www.CynicalSide.com for a look. Basically it's a Gaming/Movies/TV/Music/Techie-Stuff board where we (myself and a variety of different friends) can post to talk about whatever's on our minds. There's already a coupld posts up there so go and take a look. Also, it will be a Podcast series as well but it's been tough to coordinate schedules over the holiday's so we'll probably start off with the begining of the new year.

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Finally got off my proverbial ass and started things in motion for this. After further thought I've decided to go the route of keeping the new venture on a it's own domain name and not reusing this one for the new plan. This way I'll still have my "fun & personal" site (this one) as well as my new one for the new enterprise. As I'm sure you've noticed I'm still being fairly vague but things are progressing and I'll make more announcements soon. I've purchased the new domain(s) and have started to get some of the overhead stuff taken care of. If all goes well and my availability doesn't get eaten up with day-to-day stuff I should have more for you shortly.

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I've run this site under a number of different purposes and with a number of different thoughts in mind over the years. What started out as a simple site to maintain a list of programming scripts and snippets and then morphed into a pop/tv culture "thing" for a while and even spent time as a business site has taken yet another turn. I've gone through, and am still going through, a number of significant life-changing events in the last bit of time. I've bought a new house, gotten engaged, had my mother diagnosed with breast cancer, been through her fight (and hopefully victory) over it and am about to get married (only 5 more days). With this I've decided it's time to take a look at my life, what I've held dear, what I didn't and everything in between. Time is a little cramped, to say the least, for...oh, about 5 more days, and then I've got some fairly robust changes in mind for darkfalz.com. I hope you all come back and check out the new site content when it's up and I hope you all feel a part of it.

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Title: ASP.Net 3.5 Content Management System Development
Link: Amazon, Packt, Barnes and Nobel

I'm proud to announce the release and publication of my first book. I co-authored this title and found it to be an incredible experience. One that I hope to do again sometime. It's a step-by-step walkthrough for creating your own CMS site, or rather for creating the foundations for your site. It shows you a number of different techniques and helps with the complete process. From installation and configuration to authoring content and releasing it's a complete "how-to" for your site.

I hope you find the book interesting and, as always, you can feel free to send me all the feedback you want. The book is available in physical and eBook forms.

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Wow, it looks like I’ve gone for around 2 weeks without posting anything. I guess I’ve been busier than I thought. With all the stuff that’s been going on I seemed to have neglected the site and for that I’m sorry.

Where are things at:
- The book has it’s first drafts, for all chapters, handed in so I may have a little breathing room now before chapter revisions kick-in. I should be getting some more info from the publisher with some public links for information. When that happens I’ll be sure to keep you all informed.
- Darkfalz Radio. As mentioned in other posts this took a back seat because of the other commitments. I’ve gotten the recorder in and even lined up a 1st-seat co-host (more on that later) so I’m just finishing up with who else to have on for the premiere episode and some basic outlines/topics. If all goes well I’ll get this baby up and running soon (yeah, I know I’ve said that before).
- Personal life. The wedding plans are pretty solid now and the house is settled into. We’ve still got work to do on these things but it should be diminishing as time goes on.
- MMO. Ok, yeah… I’m still an addicted to LOTRO, doubt that will change too soon but I have been trying to limit the time spent on it.

Anyways, that’s where I’m at right now. I’ll try to keep up with the site more and see what can be done, who knows I’ll even try to post more “useful” stuff for you. Maybe even a programming tip/trick or two :}

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I received the following email earlier today:

"Dear Curt Christianson,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in ASP/ASP.NET technical communities during the past year."

Thought I would share with you all. As many of you may know I was a Microsoft MVP from Oct 2002 through Sept 2008. Well it looks like I'm back :}

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In preperation for my, finally, getting Darkfalz Radio launched I decided that the recording equipment that I was trying to use was simply insufficient. Trying to get the multiple inputs simply didn't work right. With that in mind I did a little research and found that the Zoom H2 Digital Recorder (http://tinyurl.com/cszf48) seems like a great starter device. The multiple inputs and easy to use interface (based on the reviews) seemed like a great option. With that I took the hit and ordered one. It should be here sometime soon and at that point I'll gather the people and see about getting Episode 1 up on the site.

I'll keep you all informed on the recorder and the broadcast.

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Ever since I started working on an option to switch my site's backend over, and off GraffitiCMS I ran into the issue of getting my data OUT. While Graffiti uses the BlogML standard for Importing it doesn't support it for Exporting. When I made the switch to the BlogEngine.Net backend I decided I needed to write my own Exporter. With that I plugged away at a simple .Net Windows App to do just that. It worked "good enough" for me and I had a number of others asking me about it. I've been sending them out a Zip file but since I'm lazy, and not always at my PC I figured I'd put it up on the site for you to grab.

There are a couple issues to take into account.
1) This is source...so you'll need to compile it to run it.
2) Some of the values are hard-coded for my site, mostly because Graffiti didn't expose them.
3) It's setup for the VistaDB database, which was the default in Graffiti. If you are using SQL you'll need to tweak it.

If you have any issues feel free to shoot me a line.

GraffitiToBlogML.zip (2.28 mb)

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To compete against the Apple Store on the iPhone both Windows Mobile and Blackberry had announced they would be launching their own App Stores “soon”. Well the emails have started coming out and it looks like Blackberry has launched theirs. Go to http://www.blackberry.com/select/appworld, get yourself setup and start checking it out. If you find anything “super cool” feel free to post here and let me know.

I’ll try to keep this thread updated if I buy/download anything cool myself… first I need to go update my Blackberry though. Woot!!!!

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Well, the new site has been out for 1 week now and here's the skinny. The site was switched to the BlogEngine.Net engine and here's the impression I've gotten so far.

Pros:	Cons:
Easy to install/setup. Easy to import existing data*(see Con #3) Good integration with offline editor (LiveWriter). Easy Theme Changing. Easy Theme Creation. Mobile Theme Support. Extendible (open source .Net app)	No usage reports. Difficulty with permissions for images. Improper support for Imports of Tags & Images. Difficulty with Caching (for Mirror Sites) Some bugs (with v 1.4.5 but there are supposed fixes out there if you are willing to compile it yourself.

Am I missing anything? Got something to add? Feel free to add a comment or shoot me a line.

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