ScottAllender.com

So lately, I've been clowning around with DotNetNuke's scheduler engine. I'm in the process of creating a Twitter module for DNN for my day job. Apparently, the day job's website and intranet are pounding the "hell" out of the Twitter API, causing none of the updates to show after a specific amount of API requests are passed (probably between 65 - 100).

How do I resolve the issue? Well, I decided to cache the requests in a database that I control via the RSS feeds that twitter provides. Doing that, and creating the corresponding user interface, enables me to "pound" my database as opposed to the Twitter API, which then ensures that content is always being displayed.

That's all great, but it stinks if I have to manually update the cache myself, which is where the DNN Scheduler comes into play. I created a scheduled task (I will do my best to post a blog later about it), and my life should have been hunky dory. Unfortunately, if you don't set up the scheduled task using the exact class name and assembly...

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Helping to resolve mismatched keystrokes (backspace not working, arrow keys don't work appropriately, etc) in vm guests hosted by Linux VMware Workstation 6.5.1 hosts.

So I was bouncing around on a project I'm working on for my "day job," and I noticed a tremendous number of Text/HTML modules being used as a summarization for the function of the page.  Using the Text/HTML module in that function is fine, but it's not taking advantage of linking to other pages on the site or token replacement, it's kind of a waste.

How do you get around that though?  Well, every module in DNN has an advanced setting where  you can specify header or footer text.  In the case outlined above, this works perfectly.  One of the benefits of using this is with less modules on the page, page loads become a little more efficient.

I have a few ideas on some new topics that I'm going to post about later this week.  With that in mind, I really don't want to relay on just the search engine's spidering my site to provide the content.  So, I've joined Technorati!  Hopefully this will provide a boost in helping other IT folks get the information I've provided through my years of experience.

I just made some changes to the site.  The one I'm most excited about is the "useful blog" section on the left.  Basically, any blogs that I write that I find useful or get feed back on will go there.  It's kind of a sticky note for myself, and will hopefully ensure that if anything I write is helpful on the interweb, it'll get found.

Another addition is an events page, which will have any upcoming events I am a part of posted, and I finally got the contact page the way I want it.

Hello All!  Well the site layout has changed.  Thank God for DotNetNuke's skinning engine.  It makes revamping a site so much easier.  More things will be changing much sooner.  My goal is to post a software blog soon.

Wow, it has been way to long since I posted an entry.  Well, all of that is about to change.  A lot of changes are going to be creeping into the site.  Better navigation, skin changes, content modification, and I'm going to try to post a little more regularly.  I've got a lot of cool things that I'd like to bring to light, especially for web developers and beginner VMware admins.

Check back periodically.

Ok, I will be the first to say that I do not have a business frame of mind in terms of acquisitions and shareholder values.  That said, here's my concern about the latest bruh-haha from Yahoo!  What the hell?!

First off, Jerry Yang has allowed the PR war to paint him as a "I believe that Microsoft is the Anti-Christ and because of that I will not deal with them" person.  Steve Ballmer narrowly avoided the tag of biggest buffoon of the universe by finally walking away from Yahoo!.

Also, let me say that I think Yahoo! would be best served by letting Microsoft take them over.  In my opinion, all Microsoft would be taking over is brand equity, which is considerable.

Now, since Yang and company group thinked themselves into avoid being bought out by Microsoft, they now have to face investors who are upset that they didn't capitalize on Microsoft's offer, i.e. Carl Icahn. 

It's my understanding that Carl Icahn has a good history of proxy battles and takeovers.  Now my question is, what really...

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For work, I recently had to expand a system disk for a VMware VM.  Of course, the conventional wisdom is that you cannot expand the system disk.  But did I let something like common sense stop me?  No!

Basically, I converted the VM.  The VMware converter allows you to P2V (physical to virtual) and V2V (virtual to virtual) computer systems (mostly servers).  But, one option allows you to convert one machine between ESX hosts.  During the conversion process, you can state how large you want the disk to be.  Once at that point, you can expand the size of the disk.  Afterwards you can run the vm with the completely expanded disk.  I'll post a more detailed walkthrough later.