So Robert posted a new screenshot of VisualBlogger Beta 3, and asked for our feedback. Here it comes...

• The UI looks too much like an integrated Office app & VS.NET.
• I HATE the post options on the right. This is supposed to be user friendly, and the property grid is not the way to go. Look at how MS implements some of its wizards in the side menu, and go the route of that.
• It's starting to look more professional, however as I see it now, its getting further and further away from that VS.NET integration he so promised a long time ago. I'd assume you would loose a lot of what you have if docked in VS.NET, then we're back to square 1 of not having a user friendly UI.
• Ditch the "Settings/Configure Blogs/Submit" menu, it should be available through the main menu. It really looks out of place now. However, I'd have a Outlook type "Send" button somewhere with the "New/Open/Save" menu.

So, in retrospective, I've always said that VisualBlogger was 1 step behind everything else, well it still is, but its catching up quick. As soon as I can quickly format code in BlogJet (direcly), I'll never use anything else.

So I finally got into GMail after several weeks and noticed I had 3 invites to give out. Well, due to the overwelhming response here, I decided to ignore all those requests and go back to the root of where I got mine, the Channel9 Gmail Request Wiki.

So, for those 3 lucky people, congrats and I hope you do the same :)

Now, those still requesting - STOP!

Man, I have absolutely NO LUCK with XP SP2 on my machines. I downloaded and installed it tonight on my home machine (which was recently rebuilt), and WHAMMO! it doesn't boot up anymore, and when it first did I lost my DVD Burner (attached via FireWire). Anyone else having this much trouble? I know I had about the same problems with XP SP2 RC1.

My dad and I went to the Menards yesterday and were looking for many household items including new shower fixtures and new patio furniture. Well, if anyone knows Menards, you know its emmensly huge, and finding things isn't that easy unless you ask. So, as we asked one of the guys working there where patio furniture, I couldn't resist and just say “Here's your sign...”

Dad: “Where's your patio furniture?”
Guy: “For ourside?”
Dad: “Umm, yeah”
Guy: “Ohh, its over there, (pointing) underneath our 2nd floor area”
Me: “Thanks, here's your sign...”

Ohh, good times. Now, whenever I'm around my dad, all I have to do is say “for outside?” and we both start cracking  up.

So, I'm not one to compete with WTF, but I just got the following email and it just completely irked me on how blatently obvious stupid people are:

“I am not able to get the Calendar and TimePicker to look reasonable.    The calendar is long, narrow and ugly.   I can't get the shape to change. The Timepicker does not focus on the times listed. The display area is much bigger than needed to hold the values and you must scroll to the right to ever see a number.  Also,  both Calendar and Timepicker displays allow underlying  'select' boxes to show through.

The controls were very easy to put in and work great but the displays are so bad that they cannot be used..”

How nice of this friendly guy...now, can you imagine what I wrote? Can you believe that it was somewhat nice? What's your verdict...

“I'll take this issue by issue...

 

"The calendar is long, narrow and ugly"

 

- There are many properties to solve this. First off, you can utilize the CalendarWidth property to set a reasonable width to make it not so "long"

- There are also a ton of Style properties (MonthHeaderStyle, DayHeaderStyle, SelectedDateStyle, etc.) that you can set to make it not "ugly"

 

"The Timepicker does not focus on the times listed"

 

- This is a known issue, and will be looked at for the next version.

 

 

"The display area is much bigger than needed to hold the values and you must scroll to the right to ever see a number."

 

- There are a multitude of properties to change how the Time Picker is displayed. For instance, you can change NumberOfColumns, PopupHeight, and PopupWidth to completely control how "big" it is as well as needing to scroll to the right to see all the numbers.

 

"Also,  both Calendar and Timepicker displays allow underlying  'select' boxes to show through."

 

- Yes, I'm aware of this. It's a known imperfection on how "windowing" takes place in the browser. Drop down lists, Listboxes, and IFrames all fall under this category, and take the highest Z-Index precedence no matter what. Consider using PopupLocation along with DisplayOffset[X/Y] properties to move the popups around. If you're still having troubles, you can always set EnableHideDropDown to True, which will hide the DropDownLists and ListBoxes from the page when the Popups are visible.

 

Now, I don't mind constructive critiscm, however it's blatently obvious that you didn't even bother reading the Help, or check out the properties to see if there were things that could alleviate your problems prior to complaining about them. The control is simple to use, yes, but sometimes (for more advanced webforms), more configuration is needed than normal. Others have expressed their concerns like you have (prior to a way of handling them), which is why these properties exist.

 

Also, I would like to point out another great resource, my forums. There are hundreds of posts about questions that you can find information about. You can find my forums at http://www.eworldui.net/forums”

 

How many of you have ever had to make some webpages that have page breaks. (Raising Hand!)

Ahh, I see a lot of you have raised your hand...now, keep you hand up if you've never known how to do this. (Still Raising Hand!)

Uhh huh, still a lot of you I see. Well, worry no more. As I was printing off my vouchers for our upcoming vacation to Florida, I noticed that the page broke at specified areas for printing. So, like a normal interested developer, I had to do a "View -> Source" to see how they did it...are you ready for it?

<DIV HEIGHT=6 STYLE="page-break-after:always">&nbsp;</DIV>

Simple, isn't it. Now, I'm wondering how supported this is across different browsers...

PS - you can put your hands down, you're starting to stink up the blogosphere  ...

So after DirectTV sold its shares of TiVo just the other day, TiVo announced that they'll be cutting prices of their DVR. According to this article, the monthly subscription will become $6.95, and TiVo will be giving price breaks to customers who already own a TiVo DVR. They also stated that the $99 Home Media Option will become part of the normal subscription! That rocks!

Err - I have GMail, so what. I hardly use it because I don't need 3 dozen email addresses floating around. So, this means I *don't* get to see the "invite someone" link at all.

Why did I post this? Well, my original post "Got GMail?" continuously receives inquiries about getting invited. Currently, there stands about 30 people wanting an invite. Can I invite them? No. Why? Because I don't use it enough. It's just frustrating, and I darn well can't turn off comments for just one of my posts. I get these inquiries daily, and its just driving me nutz.

So, if you're thinking about asking me for an invite, think otherwise. *If* I do get around to seeing that "invite someone" link, you've got a long list ahead of you, so why bother asking me.

For those of you who keep track of and love using BlogJet, I'd like to state that there's a new Beta out, check out the red item! I've already submitted a few bugs, so help Dimitri out and give 19 BETA a try!

Release Notes

BlogJet 1.1.0.19 BETA Release

FEATURES 

* Spell checker:   
  English UK and English US dictionaries included, more to come. 
* Improved Preferences window (plus Spelling options). 
* Better blog providers list in Account Wizard. 
* Distinct icons for posts with voice attachments. 
* Right-click menu for Recent Posts list. 
* Delete key deletes entry from Recent Posts list. 

CHANGES 

* "View history" menu item changed to "Get Recent Posts". 
* Changed color scheme for Code editor.

BUG FIXES 

* Fixed a long-standing bug: Runtime Error 216. 
* Tab key now switches focus from editor to title. 
* The first post sometimes didn't become selected in Recent Posts window. 
* Posting to Blogware when a category has ampersand in it's name failed. 
* Fixed category list encoding (for non-English category names). 
* "Cannot connect to server" when Page address didn't have slash (/) prefix. 
* Other bug fixes.

So Brady just pointed us to squishySyntaxHighlighter, and let me say one word..."yes!" So, with the combination of BlogJet and the squishySyntaxHighlighter, I'm all set. Now, maybe BlogJet and squishyWare should get together to wrap this up as a plugin!