chriswelch.com

Just spent a bunch of time working on what appeared to be viewstate bugs (i.e. "feature") in ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2. Here's what I found: When your page uses a master page, both your master page's and your page's EnableViewState setting must be set to True in order for your page to have viewstate. If either is set to false, viewstate will not be enabled.

This means that if you want to disable viewstate on your master page to cut down on page size for your standard elements, but enable viewstate on your page's content, you'll have to enable view state on both the page and master page and selectively turn off view state on all the controls in the master page.

Sorry guys, I know I've been out of touch for a little while, but there's a good reason... well, maybe not a good reason. While working as a Web developer at Weichert Lead Network, I had the opportunity to take my Real Estate Licensing Course, which I completed late in July. That means I'm now licensed in NJ (and Connecticut and Alabama) to sell real estate so watch out :) Probably not useful for me at this point, but it never expires if I keep paying my dues, and it was a great education.

Did you know that when you buy real estate, you're actually not buying the land, but a bundle of rights that includes the exclusive right to the land? Plus did you know that a person can sell their their mineral and air rights and upon sale your property is actually split into 2 properties? One where your building sits, and another above or below where you sold your rights. I'm sure I'll be posting more about it, but it was really exciting to really get into the information, although admittedly boring at times.

I highly recommend it if you have $380, and can stand 2 4-hour classes a week for 10 weeks.

As for the blind date, which I know many have expressed interest in, it actually didn't turn out too bad. We had a nice time, but it was still awfully awkward, and I get very chatty when I'm nervous. In either case, it was a nice way to practice, and a nice evening out.

In another effort to meet people my age, I've become a member of the NJ Young Professionals, which is a free group of 21-35+ professionals that sets up 20-30 events a month throughout the great state [sic] of NJ. A great place to meet singles and network with other professionals around the state. I've been to one event so far, and would recommend it to any. It's also great practice for a guy like me who didn't get the full college experience while at school (read: no parties at RIT).

Anyways, life is good, and hopefully, now that I've fixed a number of issues on the site, I'll be posting a little more frequently.

This is Chris, signing off!

It's fairly common to come across a link such as Click Here, or Go there now, but as a blogger or Web developer, it is important not to forget the venerable hyperlink to improve the quality of the content you create. Using hyperlinks to allow users to visit related content as they're reading can make your page much more interesting and potentially build loyalty on your site.

The Hyperlink is Born
There were two original purposes of the hyperlink. The first purpose was to provide navigational hyperlinking within and among related pages in a site. In this function we have seen hyperlinks progress from their "Home | Back | Up | Next" ancestors to sophisticated menu system and primary/secondary navigation bars.

The second purpose was to link together related documents within the content of the page. There are two groups of this kind of linking. The first is relational hyperlinking, which is hyperlinking to content that may also be of interest to the reader. This includes content such as advertising, sponsored links, and other similar documents on other sites. Examples are found on sidebars, related links panels, and at the tops, bottoms and sides of nearly every news article on the web.

While relational hyperlinks serve a very useful purpose, there is another, often forgotten hyperlink, and that is contextual hyperlinking. These links actually allow a reader to get more information about a related topic, as they're reading! While you see these kinds of links on some sites currently online, they are much more rare, but can be much more valuable.

A Brave New World
Imagine the time during the early Web, in the late 1980's and the early 1990's, when it was unheard of to be able to read something and instantly find out more information about it. In traditional research, professors and scientists reviewed studies and theses and had to spend hours locating and reviewing cited works to understand and verify references.

In today's brave new world of hyperlinking, though, a paper's author could link the cited works inline, saving the reader hours of research, while providing a new level of access to the casual reader who would otherwise not spend the effort to check out the cited works from the library. In addition, the author could also link to other papers that relate to his for example, take this sentence...

"Despite the early failure of the Apollo Mission, NASA continued the program."

How much more interesting is this sentence if the reader could get more information about the Apollo program, and NASA? Try this sentance instead...

"Despite the early failure of the Apollo Mission, NASA continued the program."

If we take full advantage of the hyperlink's true power, we will infuse new life into the content of our web pages.

Rules for Contextual Hyperlinking

1. Link the most relevant topics.
2. Link them sparingly.
3. Link the words themselves.
4. Make the words scannable.

Link the most relevant topics
The point is to give users ready access to relevant topics as they read, not bombard them with links to every little topic you can find a link for. It can sometimes be a tough call as to what should and should not be linked. Too often too little is contextually linked, especially on commercial sites that are fearful of visitor attrition.

However, it is also possible to link too much. You don't need to find a link for every word in every sentence. As an example, when you have a page discussing plant varieties, and you mention a plant by name, it would be appropriate to link to more information about that plant.

If you're struggling to find relevant links for content in your article, allow me to suggest an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, the open source, publicly edited web-based encyclopedia, or a government Web site such as the CIA World Fact Book. Using non-biased, public sources can really improve the quality of link, by providing reliable and well-balanced information for the reader.

For a good example of a well linked page see the Wikipedia article on Crew Exploration Vehicles. As the article describes the NASA program, individuals' names and terms that are important or related to the topic are linked to allow the user to get more information. Additionally, cited works are linked to directly. This allows the curious visitor to rapidly expand his knowledge not only about the topic but also around the topic, or the issues and personalities surrounding the topic.

Link them sparingly
Let me reiterate once again. Please don't link every third word in your article if you think it could be possibly viewed as relevant by someone, somewhere. The best rule I can give is to put yourself in the user's chair. If, as a reader, it would be really interesting or useful to link a word or phrase to a related article, then link it! If, on the other hand, you think you're going a little overboard, then you almost definitely are, so only keep the most relevant links - those that provide the most value. While links are great, too many can be really distracting to the reader.

Link the words themselves
The goal of contextual linking is to provide a link within the context of what the user is reading, so don't push the link off to the side. If you mention a word or phrase you'd like to provide more information about, don't be afraid to link it right where it is on the page.

Make the words scannable
Make sure your links stand out, and don't hide visited links. A link like this is much more noticeable than this. See what I mean? Believe it or not, some sites hide visited links so they blend in with the content on the page, but what if a user wants to visit a link they found on your page? They'd have to read the whole page to find it again. Very annoying for the user, and unnecessary. Tastefully selecting link colors using CSS or your blogging software improves the user experience by letting links stand out without being too distracting.

Conclusion
When you're writing for the web, whether it be a new blog entry or a new web page, it is important to focus on the user-experience. Linking to related content within the body of your page makes the user's visit much more interesting by allowing easy access to resources they otherwise may not find. By providing relevant links that carefully chosen and are easy to find, you'll stand out by giving your users an experience found on too few other sites.

I know I ususally don't go into romantic stuff on the site, but this is exceptional enough to make note of:

I'm going on my first blind date tonight. A lady from work set me up with her kid's kindergarten teacher. She's good looking and sounds interesting on the phone - but she's bringing her friend along who came into town early. This is going to be a complete disaster ;) Blind date with a girl I've never met (by def.) and her friend... I hope the friend isn't one of her ex's, at least. That would be rough. I have no idea how to get to know someone I don't know when her friend is in tow.

Ha! As Steve says, "This is going to be great!"

This is the first lazy weekend I've had in a while, and it's a long weekend to boot! Sorry for the long delay in a post, I've been putting off working on some stuff for the site, including improving the operations of this editor, which I have now finally the time to do. I have to say, there seems to be many features I want to add and simply not enough time to add them. I wish I were using a more sophisticated development platform like ASP.NET or JSF, cause PHP's simplicity (read: no features) makes it a slow language to develop for - and I'm no slouch!

This weekend's activities include reading, sitting on a blanket in the park, and a movie marathon. I will be looking forward to seeing Star Wars III finally. I've heard many good things about it.

Frank is moving to Fairfax, Virginia in a month, which makes good friend #3 to be in the DC area, not to mention the handful of other people I went to college with that live down there now. I feel like I'm being drawn there.

I've been working on my first article on this site about Hyperlinking this morning, so I'm sick of writing, I'm off to do some reading :)

I know I could use one of the available software packages on the web for my blog, but I chose to design it from scratch to meet my own needs and keep me up to speed on PHP and open source technologies, as I usually spend my days with the glorious .NET Framework. Although in some instances I question my judgement on this, it has forced me to think through many of the more unique design scenarios that may one day grace my own blogging software.

In any event, the ability to post comments is now available on my site, and please enjoy. I hope it adds a new dimension of community to this site that many others have enjoyed for some time. Cheers!

Went to see Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keiler at the Town Hall in New York City tonight. One of the coolest things I've done since I've come down here. Go to their site and check out pictures of this week's episode if you get a chance.

This week's guest, one of the world's great sopranos, and a native of Rochester, NY, Renee Fleming. How often do you get to see a world renouned soprano Hoe Down with someone from Minnesota? Not very, I'd imagine ;)

I was watching these movies I just got from Amazon, called "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset". Both movies, set 9 years apart, center around two people who meet one day on a train in Europe. The young man, played by Ethan Hawke, is a young American torn from a recent relationship and travels the continent on his Eurail pass. Julie Delphy plays the young French woman who meets Hawke on the train. They share a romantic 24 hours having thought provoking conversation and falling in love behind a Viennesse backdrop.

They meet again, 9 years later, in a Parisian bookshop. Hawke, now a writer, finally sees Delphy again after a failed encounter in Vienna 6 months after their magical evening nearly a decade ago. Although both now in relationships, neither had been able to let go of the past, both acknowledging the deep and lasting impact each other had made on their lives, even from only one night.

Hawke confesses to Delphy that his life had not turned out as he had planned, and that although he was no longer in love with his wife, he didn't want to live tied to a responsibility and commitment that didn't bring either him or his wife any joy from. He explained that much of his life was spent seeking his "ideal self", if not his "honest self"

Although there are many parts of these movies that are highly romanticized, I cannot help but be moved by them. The feeling that life is so immediate and pressing, and that magic can happen at any moment. However, even a life where magic is welcomed can lead to disappointment and years of regret over a forgotten last name or phone number.

It's troubling to think that even a life full of dreams and drama, that romantic notion of a life "fully lived" can even yet be unsatisfying.

When I went to visit my friend Matt for his 23rd birthday this past weekend, we talked about contentment and that in life there are many things that we long to experience. However, as there are only a finite things in life we are able to do, we must be able to be content doing the things which truly make us content, and resign ourselves to our imaginations for the rest, because we all know that the grass is not always greener. In fact, we should be so lucky that the grass is even as green, so it would be best to leave it in our minds where at least it can always be a good thought.

My dilemma is what must we do that will make us the content? The quest to be my ideal self, if not my honest self sounds vaugely of my own life. How does one search for their honest self? — the search for what satisfys our desires and makes us content mentally, if not materially. I want deeply to be a good husband, father, and provider, and although I want to be wealthy, I have no desire to be wealthy regardless of these things. I also want to live deeply and richly, and doing things that matter to others as well as myself. But to what degree should I sacrifice what I've worked for today, for what I may truly be happier with? I believe the right answer is everything that can be replaced is worth sacrificing, but is it the wisest? Why squander something without giving it time to pay back the investment?

In my mind, and I know this is problematic, I cannot escape that Return on Investment, or ROI, formula:

TOTAL BENEFIT - TOTAL COST = RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Sometimes in life we must take the big risks to be the most successful, and in life as with my money I seem to be drawn towards the slow and steady approach than the gung-ho approach. Maybe wise, but more fulfilling in the end? I don't know.

What an amazing spring day! This afternoon after I cleaned my car, I took a drive up to Eagle Rock Reservation. Eagle Rock is one of the highest points in the the New York metro area, and provides one of the most commanding and overwhelming views I've ever seen.

From the top of the park, there was a 9/11 memorial, and a scenic overlook from which you could see miles and miles around. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Newark were all recognizable. The park was quiet and sunny, and a warm breeze was blowing. I stood there in awe for minutes just staring at the breathtaking skyline.

Afterwards, I enjoyed the rest of the day patronizing some of the shops in Montclair, including a great little gag store called Copabanana, where I picked up a dashboard hoola dancer :) and had lunch at a very retro soda fountain, serving old fashioned hamburgers and onion rings.

I realize how fortunate I am, but I laugh when I think about the weeks leading up to my move a few months ago. I had no idea about anything in Northeast Jersey, only that I didn't want to live in Bergen County, where in their infinite wisdom, the county government continues to keep shops and theatres closed on Sunday. What the heck are people supposed to do?

Having never spent a day outside of Bergen County I was going to have to find a place to live in about a week. I did plenty of research online, which saved me lots of time for apartment listings, but the big question mark was where were the good areas? I knew I wanted to live somewhere with fast, easy access to Manhattan, either by car or by train (preferablly train), and I wanted to live in a nice middle class or upper-middle class area.

After locating some suitable listings in Essex and Hudson counties, I went first to Jersey City. I'd heard Jersey City was up-and-coming, but boy was I in for a shock. Other than the exclusive high-rises on the waterfront, Jersey City and most of Hudson county was a dump. I was so scared in most neighborhoods that I didn't even want to stop, and had to leave after an hour of driving around. Some of the less grimey areas could probably be described as "very urban" but I'm as white a white boy can get and I didn't want to live that close to the ghetto.

After fleeing Jersey City, I came to Essex county, and by comparison, this was a God-send and where I ended up finding my apartment. Infamously, Newark is in Essex county, but is a good 6 miles away from where I live, which is as different as Times Square and the Bronx. I ended up living in Bloomfield, which is a small town next to Montclair, and one of the more charming communities in Northeastern NJ. Here you'll find antique shops, quaint shops, beautiful parks and trees, great food, and great culture.

But while I admit that I love it here, there's something about it that feels out of my leauge if only because of the amount of money in Montclair. These are some very exclusive towns around here. I've been visiting other areas closer to Central Jersey such as Union, Somerset and Middlesex Counties, and they are nice, although admittedly I need to spend more time looking. I've heard that these smaller towns more Southwest of New York are the next desirable suburbs because of their reasonable prices (by our standards) and good living.

I don't know where I'll end up yet (as in life), but I'm enjoying it while I'm here. Time will tell, but I'm going to take every advantage of it that I can. Actually, in that vain, I really should get the newspaper, so I can feel more connected. That is the one thing I need to get more of - connectedness with the community. I'm sure there's a lot going on that I don't know about. Like I've been thinking about joining a theatre or cooking class or something. That would be fun, right?