One of my current projects at work is to create a website for one of our international offices using Telerik’s Sitefinity CMS. Our marketing managers in the region will be managing the website’s content and one of the requirements was to allow them to authenticate to the backend using their AD user account. We’ve used Sitefinity 3.7 in the past, but for this project we are using the latest stable build (4.4 as of this posting) which has updated the way the security settings are implemented. After a little trial and error, this is how to enable Windows Active Directory authentication with Sitefinity 4.x.
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The Nostalgia Level is off the Charts
I was browsing the internet today and came across a link to a new Looney Tunes animation! Two in fact, with another on the way. When I was growing up, Looney Tunes were pretty much all I watched from the cartoon world. For whatever reason I didn’t follow the seemingly traditional track by getting a daily dose of Transformers or GI Joe, at least that is until Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles arrived. (Donatello yo!) Oddly enough, I hadn’t even thought of Road Runner until just a couple of days ago, where they managed to sneak in while I listening to a Radiolab podcast. In the episode, the hosts, Jad and Robert, were postulating the reason as to why the Road Runner shorts caught on like they did, even though they were still following the basic template of a chase cartoon. (In case you were wondering, their theory was based on how the Coyote is very human-like and lives a me-against-the-world existence which is very relatable for the average Joe.
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Zebra Striping in SQL Reporting Services
Zebra striping, also known as alternating row colors or candy striping, is the application of a different color or shading to alternating rows in a data table. The striping not only makes your data more aesthetically pleasing, but it can also assist guide the reader’s eye along the row. This effect may be even more beneficial for large tables of similar data or tables with large amounts of whitespace separating the columns where the eye may have a tendency to wander into adjacent rows.
Mount your center speaker on the cheap
For Christmas this year Santa delivered me a Polk CS2 center speaker for my home theater setup. The orignial center that came bundled with my Onyko HT-R340 had clearly been overpowered when I upgraded the front channels to Polk R50s earlier in the year. This led to movie nights where I had to guard the remote, turning up the volume during speaking parts and frantically scrambling to turn it back down during loud scenes when there was a surprise explosion or some gunfire. The upgrade presented a new problem however, where to place the speaker.
Kickball, but with beer this time
Another year nearly gone, another season finished. No, I’m not talking football this time, but rather kickball. That’s right, organized frickin’ adult kickball! One of every one’s favorite school yard pastimes, but for drinking professionals. In fact, the real only difference between what you remember is you get to enjoy the game with a Bubba Keg full of the frosty cold beverage of your choice instead of juice boxes and community water fountains. Intrigued yet? Well, it gets better. If you manage to string together enough wins and take the regional cup (yeah, there’s a cup trophy!), you get to make a trip out to Vegas to represent your region in the finals. In addition to the awesome kickballin, you also get the chance to participate in several social events though out the course of the season such as pub crawls and bar gatherings.
If you’re looking for a fun sports league to play in that isn’t the same boring volleyball or softball leagues give kickball a shot if you have what it takes. If you want more information, make sure to check out the Waka Kickball site. Solo players and groups are welcome!
Without further adieu, check out the Los Locos highlight video of this season:
Los Locos Season Highlights Winter 2008 from Shaun Smith on Vimeo.
Credit Mike “Talcum Powder” Parker
Don’t have ESPN360 access? There may be hope
Finally!
This past Saturday marks the official* start of the 2008 college football season. Those of you who weren’t watching the 56-3 lashing of Fort Valley St by Valdosta St. in the highly touted Division II match up, that means your season probably officially begins for you on Thursday around 6pm EST. Cable service provides quite the buffet of games for your enjoyment, and for most, the creme of the crop 7:30pm EST showdown between North Carolina State and South Carolina on ESPN.
The only problem was the game I needed to see was only being shown on ESPN360, ESPN‘s online video streaming site. This presented quite a problem since ESPN360 isn’t your typical subscription based website where a user can simply sign up. Instead, it is more akin to a premium cable channel where your provider must first agree to pay to carry the service before it is ever offered to the customer.
Unfortunately for me, Bright House Networks, our local cable and internet provider here in Orlando doesn’t have an agreement in place to offer ESPN360. This leaves me stuck without being able to watch my beloved Hurricanes take on Charleston Southern in their season opener on Thursday night.
New Threads
I think it’s time to pop the cork, this site is finally going to get some attention from yours truly. For the few of you who may have visited before, you should hopefully notice that this place finally has gotten a bit of a visual upgrade. Hopefully with the new looks will come some newly minted Motovation™ has go to deliver the content to help fill out the pages a bit. I got impatient with the place holder site looking so bad, so I put this up at a little less than 100% completed. With that said, there is a good likelihood you may find a seeminly random labled peice of content (see footer as of 7/30) or the occasional blank page, but do not dispair fair purveyor of the internets, they shall be fixed shortly.