12 Feb, 2008. In no particular order, here are the top ten things I've learned to pay attention to when dealing with production ASP.NET applications. Hopefully they will help you save you some time and headaches. As always, your thoughts and additions are welcome. 1. Generate new encryption keys When moving an application to production for the first time it is a good idea to generate new encryption keys. This includes the machine validation key and decryption key as well as any other custom keys your application may be using. There is an article on CodeProject that talks about generating machineKeys specifically that should be helpful with this. 2. Encrypt sensitive sections of your web.config This includes...  Read the full post or  the 52 comments.

12 Feb, 2008. In no particular order, here are the top ten things I've learned to pay attention to when dealing with production ASP.NET applications. Hopefully they will help you save you some time and headaches. As always, your thoughts and additions are welcome. 1. Generate new encryption keys When moving an application to production for the first time it is a good idea to generate new encryption keys. This includes the machine validation key and decryption key as well as any other custom keys your application...  Read the full post or  the 52 comments.

31 Jan, 2008. While flipping through some old notes , I was reminded of another idea that was discussed: Emotional Intelligence . Over the course of the semester, we investigated the value of Emotional Intelligence through several exercises and were challenged to try them at work and discuss the results. I do remember one "experiment" in particular. A Little Background At the time, I was working on a software application which included a moving map component. The importance of this component, led our...  Read the full post or  the 2 comments.

30 Jan, 2008. I was cleaning out some files a while ago and came across notes from a leadership class I took several years back. The notes read: * do the following once a day to reflect on the current status of a project * DO - What have you done/observed so far? STUDY/REFLECT - What did you learn from that event/observation? CONNECT/SYNTHESIZE - How does this connect with what you already know? PLAN - What will you do differently now? Common sense really. And probably the natural way most of us approach continuous...  Read the full post or  the first comment.

23 Jan, 2008. A few days ago, the Daily Dilbert really resonated with me. They usually are pretty funny; and even funnier when you've directly experienced what Scott Adams is poking fun at. When I read this, I was reminded of an experience I had while working at Lockheed . Lockheed had (and probably still has) a tradition of giving employees gifts on employment anniversaries. The one year gift was a nice pen with a fancy logo on it accompanied by a congratulatory letter. Now, the thing that surprised me most...  Read the full post or  the 3 comments.

20 Oct, 2007. Kevin Harder is blogging the Community Server Developer Conference live! Check it out .  Read the full post or  be the first to comment.

04 Aug, 2007. If you haven't heard, the deadline for the Community Server Theme Contest has passed . The good news is that now you can vote on your favorite themes and download them for your site(s). As part of the Theme Extravaganza, I submitted a single Blog Theme, Fluid, similar to the one currently used on daptivate.com (note that this is about to change, as I am currently working with a designer on a new theme). It is named Fluid for several reasons ... that is the name of the Arcsin template I used as...  Read the full post or  the 71 comments.

21 Jun, 2007. In case you missed it. Well, it's really too late anyway... NOTE: Service of FeedBurner publisher accounts will not be interrupted as a result of the acquisition by Google . You will have a 14-day interim period ending June 15, 2007 to opt-out of allowing Google to service your account. If you take no action by June 15, 2007, the rights to your data will transfer from FeedBurner to Google. Opting out will terminate your user agreement with FeedBurner, permanently delete your FeedBurner account...  Read the full post or  be the first to comment.

13 Jun, 2007. If you are looking for a stand-alone Twitter client for your Windows box, you've come to the right place. Sort of. I have a recommendation. Check out Tel e twitter . A group of us at Telligent teamed up with others in the community , led by Jason , and decided to crank out a Windows Twitter Client. We came up with something that is definitely worth a spin . If that doesn't suit your fancy, Google will keep you busy for a while . Finally, the point But really, the purpose of this post is to...  Read the full post or  the 6 comments.

13 Jun, 2007. In The Expectation Paradox , Seth Godin writes: "As word of mouth becomes an ever more important component of marketing, the scales are tipping. Undersell, overdeliver. It's the strategy that works in the long run." As I think: "When was underselling and overdelivering a bad strategy? Has one of the demigod's of marketing just now enlightened us to the value of integrity?" Hey, you gotta love the first reactions of an ignorant software developer. Maybe TheBlackFin can...  Read the full post or  the first comment.

13 Apr, 2007. Syndicating content on the web has never been easier. I would venture to guess that the Blog, in a general sense, has become the most popular way that users push content to the web. And most Blog software supports at least two methods of syndication: RSS and E-mail. Even if the Blog software doesn't there are sites like FeedBurner and FeedBlitz which enable these syndication options to be added or enhanced. So, that's pretty cool. A person can type some text, push a button and boom! It is...  Read the full post or  the 5 comments.