Blogging

I work for Microsoft now

David Vidmar — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:00:27 GMT

It’s been quiet around here and for a good reason. As I hinted before there has been many changes in my life recently. In same week I became father for second time (father of three boys now, twins and a new baby!), finally finished my engineer’s degree and finally, I joined the ranks of best company in the world to work for – Microsoft.

I’ll be working as I consultant for Biztalk Server and Forefront Identity Manager and from time to time a Dynamics CRM consultant.

So, what can you expect? Occasional dry stints, lots of BTS and FIM links, Windows Phone 7, Azure and Windows 8 and other cool Microsoft stuff.

If you are fellow Microsoftie, please look me up and drop me a note – let’s connect!

Site troubles

David Vidmar — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 06:50:31 GMT

This site has been experiencing technical difficulties in last couple of days. As far as I can see, it’s been some hackers playground. Things are returning to normal.

Thank you all for your patience.

Lots of media love

David Vidmar — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:49:57 GMT

In last couple of days, your truly unexpectedly got quite some love from the media world.

First, FBS on the cover of biggest Slovenian computer magazine. That does make me cover model?

So far I haven’t heard anyone from Hollywood yet, but I got ton of hilarious SMS messages regarding this photo. Keep them coming!

More important, I was featured as #6 in “A Feed You Should Read” list on Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day blog.

This is really big honor as I count Greg’s blog as a must-read-at-once resource and his continuous list of cool links was inspiration for my “Links of the Week” series.

This “prize” will surely give me motivation to continue with this blog. Thank you Greg, and read you soon!

Bonus link: My other Monitor article listing 100 most useful free programs was just published on line, go check it out and comment away!

WordPress email configuration on Windows/IIS

David Vidmar — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:52:27 GMT

WordPress is a breeze to install if you have PHP any MySQL in place. On Windows/IIS there are two dark holes, though.

One is URL rewriting and the other is sending email about comments, forgotten passwords etc. Let’s talk about the second one today.

If you enable SMTP email sending in php.ini you are halfway there. But there is a good chance SMTP server will not accept your email if the mailbox is not local, since WordPress sends email from hardcoded address wordpress@<your-domain>. Also, this will not work if your SMTP server requires authentication.

All this can be easily solved with Configure SMTP WP plugin. This plugin lets you configure SMTP sending details and even lets you use Gmail servers for sending mails. As usual, installation is dead simple, after you do it you just configure SMTP server details and it just works.

SnapBomb - it's for real

David Vidmar — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:21:59 GMT

Some time ago I wrote about buzz generating blog advertising site called SnapBomb.

I'm happy to report that they did paid for my review of their site, so I can recommend fellow bloggers to check them out.

Although I'm not pro-spam, this seems very well balanced so it's not annoying.

How it works: if you don't mind some blog marketing, then sign up, validate your blog and wait couple of days. After your blog is verified you will be presented with "opportunities" about which your are invited to write about. Pick those that you really care about and are relevant for your readers. Opportunities are matched to your blog content, so you don't have to fear that you'll turn your blog to a pile of spam. Use your head and don't be greedy and you can collect some change for your domain registrations or other small web expenses.

Simplifying my life - Avoiding words when writting articles for a magazine (Marking words in the list using Word macro)

David Vidmar — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:45:08 GMT

Lately I have been writing articles for Monitor computer magazine. When I analyzed what I have written and what lector changed, I easily built a list of words I should avoid.

Since I'm developer I believe that software can help. So I have written three Word macros to help me avoid those words and phrases in my articles.

With three buttons on toolbar and three keyboard shortcuts fixing articles before turning them in is a piece of cake!

I only need to maintain a text file with suspicious words and their suggested substitutes. Format is super simple. Here are few sample lines:

ampak|temveč
blog|spletni dnevnik
direkt*|neposredn*
idej*|zamisel

Finally, here is the VBA code for three macros.

MarkForForbiddenWords opens a file with words I try to avoid and suggestions, reads line by line and marks found words with green squiggles.

Sub MarkForbiddenWords()
    
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Replacement.Text = "^&"        
        .MatchWildcards = True     
    End With          
    With Selection.Find.Replacement.Font 
        .Underline = wdUnderlineWavyDouble
        .UnderlineColor = wdColorSeaGreen
         End With          
    
    intUnit = FreeFile     
    ' change to correct path!     
    Open "C:\Users\David\Documents\checklist.txt" For Input As #intUnit
 
    Do While Not EOF(intUnit)
        Dim strBuffer As String         
	Line Input #intUnit, strBuffer                  
	s = Split(strBuffer, "|")
    
        With Selection.Find
            .Wrap = wdFindContinue
            .Text = s(0)
            .Replacement.Text = Replace(s(0), "*", "") & " [" & s(1) & "?]"             
	    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll         
	End With                  
	DoEvents     
    Loop      
End Sub

NextMarkedForbiddenWord is much simpler, it just finds occurrence of text with green squiggles.

Sub NextMarkedForbiddenWord()
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "" 
        .Forward = True 
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue 
        .Format = True 
        .Font.Underline = wdUnderlineWavyDouble 
        .Font.UnderlineColor = wdColorSeaGreen 
    End With 
    Selection.Find.Execute 
End Sub

CleanUpForbiddenWords cleans things up as they were.

Sub CleanUpForbiddenWords()
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "" 
        .Forward = True 
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue 
        .Format = True 
        .Font.Underline = wdUnderlineWavyDouble 
        .Font.UnderlineColor = wdColorSeaGreen 
    End With  
    With Selection.Find.Replacement
        .Text = "" 
        .Font.Underline = wdUnderlineNone  
       .Font.UnderlineColor = wdColorAutomatic 
    End With 
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll 
End Sub

Another couple of minutes saved!

Technorati tags: word, office, macro, vba, replace text, lectoring

Find great jobs and hire the best talent

David Vidmar — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:44:39 GMT

Users that actually visit vidmar.net site have probably noticed there has been job board embedded in this site. At first I tested the field with my own version of it, but that was later replace with a professional service Hidden network by Alex Papadimoulis, legendary MVP for MS Paint and author of The Daily WTF.

I believe this service on my blog will be of use for both job seekers and employers!

If you are looking for a new challenge, just browse jobs and subscribe to the feed. Just don't forget to report back when you get that dream job, ok?

If you are employer, you can post your jobs for free (international) or with a huge discount using these codes:

100OFF0712 - $100 discount ($199 for first listing)
200OFF0712 - $200 discount ($99 for first listing)
299OFF0712 - $299 discount (free first listing)
INTLFREE7 - free international (non US/CA) listings

When you apply, please enter my referral number 1159. Thank you!

Take a look at some others blogs that are part of Hidden Network:

Technorati tags: job, job ads, employment

I burned my feed

David Vidmar — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:27:32 GMT

I finally turned my RSS feed info FeedBurner one using MyBrand feature.

For you, reader, nothing should really change. But if something is wrong, please let me know.

Basically my old RSS URL

http://vidmar.net/weblog/rss.aspx

is automatically redirected to

http://feeds.vidmar.net/BiteMyBytes

Nice, one more stat I can refresh all day long when waiting for something to compile/start/install/download... Like I need one more! :)

Another GenericBlue Subtext skin fix

David Vidmar — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:02:02 GMT

I fixed a bug in GenericBlue skin. Re-download at original post.

Technorati tags: subtext, skin, design, fix

Subtext Skins: GenericBlue skin updated again

David Vidmar — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:46:42 GMT

I look like my port of GenericBlue skin did go all that well. Reader notified me that I left some custom controls in there.

So I made another update and updated the Subtext Skins entry, but it usually takes a while that admin confirms my update.

Download: GenericBlue skin for Subtext

Screenshot: GenericBlue skin for SubText posted on SubTextSkins

Technorati tags: subtext, skin, design