Orbius entered preview mode back in March.  Since then we've been adding new features and tweaking our User Interface. Admittedly, we started off with some great features but some of them needed a facelift. This current release is really nice and things on the site look great.  We'll keep working on that too.  Our strategy, and a sound business plan in my opinion, is to start simple.  Now that we have a great feature set, we need to improve upon it a bit and we'll do that based on user feedback.  So if you have any suggestions, contact me or use the Orbius Support Orb.

Of course, if you have no idea what Orbius is, check out this post or just click here and go right to Orbius.  We no longer have the preview gate up, which means that anyone can use Orbius! 

We're always working on tweaks and new features for Orbius, don't be surprised if every few weeks you see changes on the site.  I'll try to blog about then too.  This week's release has so many enhancements, I can't even remember them all.  But here's some highlights:

Content Rating:   Now content rating is enabled on blog posts, discussion forums, calendars, images and other content.  Community members can rate whatever they like on a 5 star scale.  Then everyone can see the ratings and sort by them too.

Also, the Orb admin can customize the theme and choose a different ratings style:

Featured Content:   As an Orb administrator, if you want to highlight some content in a community, you can mark it as "Featured".  When you do this, it will appear in a Featured Content widget is added.  This is a great way to make sure that your members see the content that you feel is really important.

In this example, I featured a Forum Post titled "Tons of new features in Orbius".  It shows up in the Featured Content widget, along with Calendar Event that was also featured.

New Menus:   Now Orbius has enhanced menus so you can easily nest items.  Plus you can add a hyperlink right to your menu and point to an Orbius page or even an external site.

And you can move menu items around.  In this example, I created a menu item for "Blogs" and moved two blogs underneath it.

Popup menus for Orbs, Profiles and Personas:   When you see a thumbnail image (that's the picture that represents an Orb or a Persona) on a page, hover the mouse over it to get a popup menu with actions that you can take.  This also works for links too so most places where you see a link to a Profile (a user in Orbius) or a Persona (a user in an Orb), you can see the menus.  Just like this:

Here is what I see when I hover over the Orb thumbnail.  The popu has links to join or visit the community.

      

And I get a different option on the popup when I hover over the link to Elise. 

 Enhanced features for embedding Video:  Want to include a video in your Orb?  Just create a textblock.  When you edit the textblock, click on and you will be guided to insert the video.  You can choose a variety of video providers.

Choose a provider, search for your video (or put in a specific url) and you'll have embedded video in your Orb in no time at all!

 

There are lots of other new and existing features on Orbius.  Too many to mention here.  The only way to find them out is to click over to Orbius and try it out.  It's free and it's a great place to host your community.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

Ben is very excited that summer is here!  In fact, summer hasn't officially started but no one told that to Ben.  Like all cool kids, Ben needed a wardrobe upgrade to get ready for the season.  Now he's got a few bathing suits, shirts and hats so he can enjoy the weather.  Plus, if you hadn't noticed, Benny is pretty fair skinned so we need to be extra careful in the sun.

Ben's friend Lauren and her family invited us to swim at their club.  Ben had a really good time in the kiddie pool.  Most importantly, he didn't embarrass us with any "accidents" in the pool! 

The following weekend was a big one.  Not only was it Ben's first trip to the Beach but it was my first Father's Day.  Lucky for Ben (and us), his Zaida and Bubbie have a beach house. FYI, that is Yiddish for Grandpa and Grandma, although I am not positive on the spelling.  Ben hopes to spend a lot of time with them at the beach this summer.  We spent Father's day with Rebecca's dad and his wife, as well as her brother and sister their families.  It was a really nice day and Ben got to hang out with cousins Billy, Dylan and Fiona.  We missed Bret who had a sleep over that night with a friend.

That Saturday we took Ben for his first walk on the Boardwalk.  I think it was pretty special for Rebecca since she spent all of her summers there since she was little.  Sunday's weather was pretty bad.  In the afternoon it seemed to be clearing out so we decided to take Ben to put his feet in the ocean for the first time.  Our friends Dean and Alexis joined us. After some preparation we were finally making our way to the beach.  As we were about to step off the board walk the neighbors  told us that the beach was CLOSED!  What?  Yes, the lifeguards told everyone to leave because of a lightning storm that was approaching. Sure enough, looking in the other direction we saw some nasty clouds.  I guess Ben will have to wait until next weekend to hit the beach.  Incidentally, within a few minutes the sky opened up and it poured for quite some time!

Here's some shots from the weekend:  Don't forget you can click on the to see a larger version

 

I love toys an gadgets!  They are so much fun.  Most of us geeks are gadget guys too.  I just got a GPS for my car, it's so much fun to play with.  Toys that help me get my job done faster and better are really cool.  They help me pay for the other cool toys like GPS's, HD Camcorders, MP3 players, etc.  One of my favorite toys for work is ReSharper, a super Visual Studio add-on that helps out in many ways.  If you aren't using ReSharper, you should check it out.  It isn't really a toy but it makes coding so much more enjoyable and easier, it may as well be a toy.

I've been using ReSharper for a pretty long time, I blogged about it over a year ago.  But in Oct 2007 I started my current job and switched to VS 2008 (it was beta at the time) so I couldn't use ReSharper because it didn't work with LINQ and Lambdas and all of the other cool stuff in VS 2008.  I had hoped that ReSharper 4.0 would have been ready a little sooner since the VS 2008 was officially released quite some time ago, but unfortunately I had to wait.  But now it's here and packed full of cool enhancements.

One of the best features of ReSharper is that you don't need to compile your code to see all of the errors -- not that my code has any errors ;-).   But I wrote about that and some other old features already.  Here's some new features:

• ReSharper fully supports LINQ and the other language enhancements.
• ReSharper provides great code completion/intellisense in aspx pages (source view)! 
• Also, ReSharper will create method stubs from an ASPX page source view - so if I type OnCommand="foo", ReSharper can create:

protected void foo(object sender, CommandEventArgs e)
{
     thrownewNotImplementedException();
}

• With "CamelHumps", you can abbreviate class names and method names and let ReSharper complete the word.  So if I have a method named GetAllDuplicates(), I can just Type GAD!

So far, I have only one complaint but it is really no big deal.  ReSharper wants to convert a lot of my local variables to the new variant type - var.  I use the var type in code where I want it, but I don't believe it should be over used like this.  If a variable is a string and I know it is a string, it should be typed as such, as a string.  ReSharper offers the suggestion to convert it to a var.  But the cool thing about ReSharper is that I can tell it I'm not interested in this and it won't bother me any more!

Believe me, there are a ton of other great features.  Just download a trial version or ReSharper 4.0 for yourself and check it out.

 

Right now I've got 4,234 pictures taking up 8.53 GB of space on my desktop computer.  As a matter of fact, I've got a boat-load of video files too since I recently bought an HD Video camera.  And 33 GB of music too.  So soon I'll be exploring ways to back up all of this information.  But for now, let's talk about tagging! 

The other night I wanted to organize all of the pictures on my PC.  Sure, I'm a Vista user but I still haven't figured out all of the features included with it.  I fired up Windows Photo Gallery to see what it can do.  It's a pretty intuitive application so before long I had all of my files organized and tagged.  Tagging is a cool concept.  If you aren't familiar with it, when you tag a photo (or another file), you assign it a category.  But unlike the folders that we store photos in, I can put many different tags on a picture.  So if I have a photo of my wife and I, I can tag it "Andy" and also "Rebecca".  Plus, if we are on vacation, I can tag it with "vacation" or "skiing" or whatever. 

Although Windows Photo Gallery is part of Vista, I also have Windows Live Photo Gallery, which is a free download.  It seems to have a few more features then the version included with Vista and, as far as I know, it works on Windows XP too.

Why tag photos?  Now that my collection is organized with tags, I can easily search my collection with Windows Photo Gallery for specific pictures.  If I want to see all pictures of my wife and I on vacation, I just enter "Andy Rebecca vacation" in the search box and BAM, I get what I was looking for.  Or I can search for "Rebecca Hiking" or "Friends Skiing" or "Family Beach".  Plus, I can sort the results by date, tag, folder, etc.  Pretty cool, huh?

It's really easy to do.  I started off tagging photos in bulk.  My files are already organized in nested folders with meaningful titles such as "Skiing-> Big Sky" or "Vacation -> Italy".  Andy I've (already) got tons of pictures of little Ben in folders like "Ben -> Week 1".  So to start, I selected every picture in the the folder called "Ben" (including 6 sub folders) and tagged every picture "Ben".  I did the same for the vacation photos.  I found folders named after various holidays with my family so I tagged all the photos "Family".  You get the idea.  Within a few minutes I put some simple tags on most of my pictures.  Since the thumbnail viewer is pretty good and I have a wide screen monitor, it was easy for me to then open folders, select lots of pictures at one time and apply more specific tags such as "Andy", "Rebecca", "Grandma", etc.  Plus, I removed the tags that didn't seem appropriate from my earlier "bulk tagging".  For instance, there were pictures in the folder Ben that were just of other family members.

The project only took about an hour and I was pretty well tagged up, but I am sure I'll keep on tagging my existing files to get more accurate.  From now on, I'll be tagging all of my pictures as I import them from my camera.  My tagging strategy is pretty simple.  I have tags for people such as:  Andy, Rebecca, Mom, Grandma, Grandmom, Grandpop.  Plus I use last names for siblings and their children.  So "Doe" would be used for my brother John Doe, his wife and all of their children.  And one for Friends too.

I also have activity/event tags such as Weddings, Vacation, Skiing, Sightseeing, Beach, Outdoors (hiking, etc).  You get the idea.

With 4,234 pictures and still growing, I've got a lot of great photos, and some that aren't so great.  But I hate to delete photos, (even though I should start doing so).  But with Photo Gallery, I can also Rate pictures!  So I can put 5 stars on all of my favorites.  By doing that, I'll be able to filter my pictures even more!

Yes, at the ripe old age of 3 months old, Ben went to visit his Great Grandmom in Arizona!  We  were pretty nervous about flying with the little guy but he was great during our flights.  Although on the way home, as I carried him onto the plane in the Baby Bjorn he spit up all over my chest.  Thanks!  Then when we got settled on the plane I was holding him and he spit up all over my lap!  He got me twice in 10 minutes!!  Anyway, the trip was great and Ben and his Great Grandmom had a fantastic time.  He also got to meet his Great Aunt Naomi and Great Uncle Mark.  I think they all had fun.  Ben's "firsts" for the trip include flying, sleeping in a hotel, swimming in a pool, and more.  He even went to his first Zoo.  Of course, he could care less about the animals at his age. 

 

 

In addition Ben has been working at improving some of his skills.  These days he love to play with his feet and he's starting to use his fingers more.  He's sitting up well (with a little help) and he's trying to roll over.  He's hasn't mastered it yet, but he's getting there.  The first time he did it no one saw.  He was playing on his "play gym" and Rebecca turned to him and noticed that he had flipped from his back to his front!  He's done it a few other times but each with a bit of a nudge!  He loves to sleep on his side now.  When you lay him down on his back, he just flips himself right onto his side to sleep, it is really cute.  The down side is that due to all of his new abilities, Ben is no longer allowed to be swaddled in the blanket for sleeping.  He still sleeps pretty well but he tends to wake up more at night.

 

Here's some more great pictures:

Last week I had a chance to spend a whole day with Ben.  Unfortunately, my wife's grandfather passed away (more on that in a future post).  The funeral was in Arizona and since several of the family members out there had some kind of virus, we were advised not to bring Ben.  So the only option was for Rebecca to fly out and back without us.  Rebecca left at around 5 am on Tuesday and took the red-eye back that night, getting home at 9 am Wednesday morning!  I had never spent that much time alone with Ben.  As a matter of fact, neither had Rebecca.  She's alone with him a lot while I am at work but I'm there at night to help out.  Well Ben and I made it through the day but we were sure glad to see mom when she got back!

I spent the entire day in the 3 hour feeding cycle.  This kid eats all the time!  But we had an eventful day as I was determined to not be stuck at the house all day.  We ran a few errands, went for a long walk and generally had fun.  Ben's really cool these days because he loves to smile and "play around".  Now if I stick my tongue out at him, he'll stick his back at me.  That has got to be the greatest thing I have ever seen.  Of course, he does have his moments when he is irritable.  Usually a burp or a diaper change does the trick.  But sometimes he is just cranky which, I admit, can make me cranky too.  Sometimes he'll just cry or grunt or kick his legs around and slam them down onto the bed, crib, floor, or whatever he is lying on.  That got me thinking about what goes through his head.  I was wondering, what happens when a baby has an itch?  You know how it is when you have an itch, you just have to scratch it.  But he's only 10 weeks old, he can't scratch an itch (or do anything else for that matter).  So maybe that is why he is crying? Maybe that is why he kicks his legs around?  I mean, at his age, an itch might feel like something on his leg and he's trying to shake it off. Anyway, that is just one example of the kind of stuff I think about. 

I have a heightened respect for my wife who stays home with Ben.  I say "heightened" as opposed to "new" because I always knew it was a tough, sometimes stressful or irritating job to be with a baby all day long.  Of course it is fun too.  But she seems to get a lot of stuff done in addition to taking great care of little Benny.  I had a hard time getting out the door and back in time to feed him.  I guess you get better at it when you do it all the time.  I was pretty tired that night, but I still had a few feedings to go and I had never done the 3 am feeding at all.  Plus, I don't have breasts ready to go when Ben is hungry.  I've got to have bottles ready just when he wants them. 

In the end it was a tiring but fun day and I was glad that I got to have the experience of taking care of my boy for that long a period.  I think a lot of dads don't get that experience because breast feeding mom can't usually be away that long.  By the way, we were lucky we followed the advice of experts and kept a supply of milk around for emergencies!

OK, here are some recent pics of Benny...

Philly.Net is hosting yet another Code Camp in May.  Thanks to DeVry University in Fort Washington, we'll be back at their excellent facility.  People really enjoyed the last one we had there in January.

So what's going on for Code Camp now?

Steve is organizing the speaker/session list.  Bill sent out the "call for speakers" a while ago and the track leads are working with Steve to line it all up.  We'll have 40 sessions this time.  We could easily do 50 again, but we all felt the day was a little long in January so we dropped a session.  But we'll still have the variety of tracks including asp.net, SQL Server, Alt.Net, and more.

As usual, I'm working with the Partners.  We are very fortunate again that a great group of companies have stepped up to help.

Our Platinum Partners:

DeVry University	Microsoft

Our Gold Partners:

HostMySite	Micro Endeavors
Perficient	RDA

 

Our Silver Partners:

Neudesic	Ted Pattison Group
Telerik

 

Want to know about what prizes we'll be giving out at the end of the day?  I'll post that soon!

OK life has officially changed.  Today Rebecca and I went shopping at BJ's, a "Big Box" store near us.  Ben was great through the whole thing.  Maybe that wasn't such a good thing.  Had he cried, we might have left in a hurry and I'd have been able to keep my shirt.  Instead, we took our time and I spent $350!  Ouch.  I have a feeling we saved a lot of money though, some of the deals seemed pretty good.  What's next, a mini-van?

For the first few weeks of Ben's life, we swaddled him at bed time.  He seemed to enjoy it (most of the time).  If you aren't familiar with the term, swaddling is pretty much wrapping the baby in a special blanket so they feel safe and secure.  Anyway when Ben was younger (now he is old, 7 weeks!) he started fussing and usually found a way to wiggle his arms out of the swaddle.  Then we swaddled him with his arms out.  But eventually we gave up because the whole thing seemed to stress him out.

The other day a friend suggested we try it again since her baby seemed to love it.  My sister is a big fan of it too.  So we gave it a try.  At bed time we bundled the little guy up and put him into his basinet.  Well much to our surprise, this kid slept for 5 hours! For the past few weeks the best we got was 3 - 3.5 hours at a time.  That is a pretty big difference!  At one point, when Ben had been asleep for about 4 hours Rebecca woke me up.  "Do you think Ben is OK?  He hasn't woken up yet."  Keep in mind, Ben sleeps 2 feet from Rebecca's side of the bed, so it was clear that he was OK.  So she basically woke me up to tell me that Ben was still asleep.  In the morning, my wife was still worried that he didn't like it, she felt bad wrapping him up.  I said, "he slept for 5 hours and didn't make a peep - no crying or anything!"  I'm no baby expert, but to me it sounds like he enjoyed being swaddled.  Plus, Ben is not the shy and silent type.  If he were unhappy, he would have let us know.  Last night was the second night in a row that we tried it.  He actually sleep for almost 6 hours!  Do you think we'll try it again tonight?

While I am here, I might was well include a few recent pictures...

Call me vain.  Seriously, go ahead.  Like most people, I look in a mirror when I walk past it.  I guess I am vain when it comes to blogging too.  I really enjoy blogging - writing whatever comes to mind for "people" to read.  But I like to know that there actually are people reading it.  If not, what's the point?  My blog runs on DasBlog, a pretty cool, free blogging engine.  It provides me some cool analytics, out of that box, that tell me how many hits my blog gets and more information.  And yes, I check it often.  I love to know how many hits I get. 

One of my favorite things to do is see the information that I get from search engines.  If someone came to my blog via Google or Live Search, I can see what search criteria they used.  So in the image on the left, I can see that people found my blog for a variety of reasons.  Among other things I can see that some people were searching for me or my blog, someone was looking for information about some National Parks I visited (Bryce and Zion), someone was looking for information about LINQ, and someone was looking for information on my friend Travis.  Also I see that my blog post I Hate Trusted Installer is still popular! 

Well I thought that was cool until I discovered Google Analytics!  Google Analytics is also free and is completely insane.  It gives me tons of information about who reads my blog and now I am addicted to it.  The only problem I have with Google Analytics is that it only gets updated once a day!  With my DasBlog activity information it is updated continually.  Oh well.

 

So here is what I see with Google Analytics...

This map view is awesome.  It may be tough to tell in this screen shot but it shows a map of the world.  If I get a hit from someone in any country, it turns green.  The darker colors of green have the most hits.  So obviously I get hits from the US, but I also get traffic from India, the UK, Canada, not to mention Romania, Thailand, Spain, Argentina, Lithuania, Belgium, Taiwan and many more!  How cool is that?

I can even "drill down" and see where my traffic is coming from in a specific area, like this map of Pennsylvania.  These maps are really cool but there is much more.  I can see how long people stay on my blog, what posts are popular, what browsers they use and a whole bunch of other information including the same kind of search engine "key word" information described above.  But so far, you identity is safe.  I can't seem to figure out exactly who is reading my blog.  I can't even seem to correlate data between reports, but I there must be a way to do so.  So as for now, I may be able to see what town one of my readers came from, but I can't figure out which pages the reader read.

By the way, Google Analytics is totally easy to include on your pages.  In my case, I just added the script that Google gave me into my dasBlog template: homeTemplate.blogtemplate.  That's all.