So I just wanted to let everyone know that I have just released the newest version of novella. The version number does not signify some massive upgrade or anything like that. This release is just an upgrade from .NET 2.0 to 3.5.

Why upgrade? Well first off, the architecture has now been greatly simplified using LINQ (and you all know that I love LINQ). Furthermore, the app no longer uses the ASP.NET Membership and Role providers so this greatly simplified the database as well.

So all in all, if you are just a user of novella, you won’t really notice much of a difference. However, if you are extending or customizing it in any way, you will quickly find out that just about every thing on the server has been rewritten.

If you want to get the latest, just head on over to codeplex and pickup a copy! And while I did test all the functionality, it is always possible that there are bugs, so if you find some, please email me at david at visionaryonline dot com.

As a final note, I am really pleased to announce that over 500 people have downloaded novella! Its not a ton, but I think it is pretty darn cool.

Hi, my name is David and I am an internet junkie.

Whew…it always feels better to get it all out in the open.

I have been an internet junkie for years and started collecting a list of whoozits and whatzits going all the way back from 2006 (I use blogmarks.net to collect things in case you were wondering).

I have literally hundreds of links on dozens of completely random topics. However, there are a few topics that I thought would be helpful for all of the designers and developers out there. Today I will focus on Javascript links…21 of them in fact.

Now if you are an internet junkie as well you have probably run into most of these at one time or another, but if you take a look, you may find one or two that you missed the first time around.

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Please note, this post is a sponsored review of IconGalore.com. If you would like to purchase your own objective review, please contact me. Only products and services that will be beneficial to the readers will be considered.

Go a step above
If you take a look around the web, or your desktop for that matter, you will notice that most apps and sites you see fall into two basic categories: polished and not-so-much. Two sites can do the exact same thing, but if one has a more professional look and feel, then, odds are, it will be more successful. Apple is the ultimate example. The ipod wasn’t the first portable music player, but it has something that the others simply didn’t have…panache and style.

When you are building an application (online or off), a great and easy way to add a bit of oomph is to use quality icons. You could make your own, or go and hunt down some free ones on the net, but with either scenario you run into a major snag. Building your own takes a lot of time that your client probably doesn’t want to pay for. On the other hand, if you go look for the freebies then you may find 10 nice icons in a single size that are whatever subject the designer wanted to create that day. When you are making a professional application or website, you need icons that exude that professionalism and come in the correct size (nothing looks sloppier than an icon that has been stretched).

A better way
So what is a savvy developer to do? Use IconGalore. IconGalore is a custom icon shop that makes great web application icons. Say you are building a shnazzy ecommerce site for a client. You need about 50 different icons of various sizes to make the app perfect. If you go to the web you may find 2 nice ones here, 5 there, etc. etc. By the end of your hunt you may find 50 ecommerce icons, but they are in completely random sizes and none of them actually go together…

The better route is to save yourself the hassle and go to IconGalore and spend about $100 and get a whopping 1400+ icons that cover just about every possible need for your site. If, for some reason, you can’t find what you need, then they will design one from scratch for $35. Order one up and they will get it to you in a day or two.

They have over 13,000 icons available in several different package (ranging in price from $100 - $200). If you are on a tighter budget you can get their value sets for around $50 - 100. In all honesty, their “feature” packages are higher quality and give you A LOT more icons for the price so I would recommend saving your pennies and going for one of the bigger packs.

Currently their icons are focused on the “XP style”. They are clear, colorful, and well done. I, personally, would like to see their take on some Vista sets. I am sure they are working on some, but they aren’t available yet.

Service
From a personal standpoint what I like about this company is their service. Over the years I have employed some different custom icon companies and it would sometimes take weeks to get a reply. In one case I emailed the company asking if they had gone out of business or something because they were so slow to respond (true story). Conversely, every time I have corresponded with the IconGalore folks they have been really quick to reply (usually a couple of hours). They even have live chat if you are having an icon emergency (a nice touch if you ask me).

If you want to “try before you buy”, they have some free icons that give you a good feel of all the various sizes and formats (in case you are wondering there are 5 sizes and 6 formats).

All in all I have been impressed with IconGalore. They are polite, quick to respond, and they do good work at a good price. If you are looking to take your app or site up a notch I would recommend their services.

So you have this great idea for a new web application. You are all excited because you know this thing will be the best thing since Al Gore invented the internet. You know from experience that the best way to get started is at the bottom and work your way up…so you start with your Database…then you get to your stored procs…data classes…function libraries…zzzzz.

This is a part of just about every web app that is more than just a brochure. You need a good architecture, but building one is keeping you away from building the fun stuff that is what got you all excited in the first place. Its frustrating, but necessary because not having an architecture is a recipe for disaster.

Whats a saavy web developer to do? Use LINQ.

What is LINQ? From the 30,000 foot view, LINQ (or Language INtegrated Query) is a new way to model and interact with data. It makes it 1000 times easier and gets you doing what you actually want to do without have to hassle with the tedium of getting your architecture straight.

The goal of this article is not to explain to you HOW to use LINQ (I have links to some great tutotials at the end), but rather WHY you should be using it on every web project you build from now on (at least until something even cooler comes along).

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My brother (the world’s biggest Star Wars fan) just let me know that in August of this year George Lucas will be releasing a new Star Wars film.

Seriously.

No joke.

Wanna see the trailer?

It is all computer animated and follows a similar style to the animated series “mini movies” they had on Cartoon Network. It looks really, really, really cool. What is even better is, as far as I can tell…no Jar Jar. Sign me up.

The only thing I don’t get is that in the movie (and the television show that follows it) Anakin has a padawan. That seems a bit weird. At the end of Episode 2 Anakin is 18 and in the beginning of Episode 3 he is 21. That means Lucas has about 3 years to play with before “little annie” becomes “crazy big man in a helmet”. Not really enough time to go from Padawan to Jedi Knight to Jedi Knight with a Padawan himself.

I dunno…but really, do I care? Nah. Maybe he took the advanced course at ITT or something…its got lightsabers, so I am good.

Recently I was working with a client who wanted to display a product catalog with an accordion. I have worked with accordions on several other projects in the past so I said “No problem!”. Once I got to work I noticed that there was a big difference between the accordions I had worked with before and this beast…this one was going to be dynamic. Worse yet…each level of the accordion depended on the one above it (known as hierarchical data). Yuck.

Early on I was still optimistic about the whole thing, but as the hours rolled on and my solution still didn’t work, I began to get frustrated. What started as a tale of woe ends on a happy note because I did get it all working. In order to spare you the pain I will explain how I got it working with a pretty easy solution.

Off we go. Read the rest of this entry »

So novella has been out for a week or so, and so far the reaction has been quite positive (yea!). A few of the people who are getting their hands dirty have been asking me questions about the architecture and how everything works.

So to help them and the others who are too shy to ask, here is a detailed look at the various layers that make novella tick. Before I begin, I should note that if you just want to use novella, you don’t need to know any of this. However, if you are taking things apart or you just like to know what does what, this might help.

Also, if you are a relatively new ASP.Net developer who doesn’t care at all about novella, this architecture is useful for building all sorts of sites, and is a good learning tool. I have used this architecture in one form or another on all the sites and desktop applications (with some tweaking) that I have built in the last year or so.

Lets get started. Read the rest of this entry »

So I found an issue with the steps in the help file for novella. Basically I forgot to mention that you need the ASP.Net Ajax Library 1.0 installed on your computer if you are going to run it locally. Kinda important.

I updated the help file to talk about this little requirement.

You can get the latest version by clicking here or you can visit the download page of the novella home page.

On a related note, novella has been downloaded over 100 times in about 1.5 days. Sweet.

Whew…it has been a long week, but I am proud to announce the first version of novella is out the door and ready for consumption.

You can go check it out at www.devmade.com/novella.

If you get a few minutes, check it out and let me know what you think. There are bound to be some bugs here and there in the sites and in the code so if you find any please let me know. Also, I would love any feedback you have.

Ok, so I have been reading all about the MacBook Air, just like most of the tech world, and I just don’t get it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a Mac hater by any means. The iMac revolutionized how computers looked (thank God!), and I have been drooling over the iPhone since I saw the first pictures leaked onto the web (I would have one if it wasn’t for the $200 cancellation fee from my current carrier). I also think the iPod is inspired and a great little device (although I will admit I got a Zune 2 for my wife, but it was a tough choice).

Before MacWorld I was as excited as the next guy to see what Jobs and company were going to come up with next, but the more I read about the Air the more I get confused.

From a design/ui perspective I get it. Its sleek and sexy and has that cool “apple” look to it. Where I stop drinking the Kool-Aid is when I think about it from a business perspective. Who is the market for this thing?

I know there are the mac addicts…chalk up a few thousand sold. Then you have the first adopters who just have to have anything with a power button. There are a few more thousand. But outside of that, whats the point?

Is there really a large audience looking to spend $1,800 on a laptop that has less functionality than one half that cost just because it fits in a manilla folder? I understand that road warriors needs a lightweight device because they are always on the move, but its not like you can’t find a great laptop (even a mac) that weighs 3 or 4 pounds for a lot cheaper.

Now if it were cheaper…say under $1,000, then that might make it more drool-worthy. Or heck…maybe even if it were actually smaller (like a UMPC) or maybe a sexy tablet (now we’re talkin’). I would be in heaven to have a tablet with the look and functionality of an iPhone on steroids. Mmmmm….tasty.

But as it stands now you get a fragile device (imagine dropping that little thing?) with a funky touchpad that costs almost two grand (for the cheap one).

Am I missing something?