Jeff Makes Software

I mentioned that I was building some ad serving software, and I think I'm ready to start getting it out there. CliqueSite.Ads is nearly in good enough shape to put it in the hands of some people that are willing to test it. If you're interested, please drop a comment here or e-mail. The best I can really do is give you a free license when it's done.

I'm not yet sure how I'll price it and license it. I want it to be affordable because this stuff isn't really brain surgery, it's just time consuming to build. I will say that other similar products (those based on .NET, anyway) are ridiculously over-priced.

CliqueSite.Ads can serve most ad formats that I can think of. It will do any size, pop-ups, rich HTML, etc. It does frequency and session capping. It aggregates data so you don't end up doing massive counts for every little report. The only thing I haven't added that might be useful is day/time blocking to restrict ads to certain times.

Like I said, if you're game, drop me a line! I hope to get something out by the end of the weekend.

I've blogged about good ASP.NET apps before, but I wanted to point out one written in PHP that I like. This one is for the Ohio Valley Region of USA Volleyball, the region that I coach in.

The region is the largest of any of the regions, with around 14,000 members. The regions (and USAV) is the governing body for junior Olympic volleyball, and the girls program makes up the largest portion of the membership. It's the girls juniors section of the site that I use the most. In addition to being a great resource for the bookkeeping of the giant membership pool, the app is also used to schedule tournaments and officials, register teams, show real-time results and rankings, etc. Like any good data-driven app, everything is cross-referenced.

For example, my team is listed here. It shows my roster and our registration numbers. It also shows the tournaments that we're registered for. You can see what the current rank is for your team in your division. That in turn links to tournament results listed by team (we don't have our first tourney results posted yet). You can also shop for tournaments and check an event page to get directions and other info, as well as see which teams you'll play. You can even e-mail club directors and coaches associated with a particular event.

It's not perfect, of course. There are some slow pages here and there, but considering that the whole thing is run by a volunteer, it's good stuff. The other real issue is that it's hard to get people trained to use it correctly. For example, there are only two tournaments listed on my team page. We're registered in more tournaments, but the tournament directors don't have us listed yet with our registration numbers, and therefore they don't show up. We used to have a lot of issues with results getting posted quickly for the same reason. Still, it's getting better, and it's easily the best site of any of the regions.

As the title suggests, I'm looking for some more detailed articles on how to programmatically mess with a custom configuration section in v2.0. I already get how to derive from ConfigurationSection to make various attributes in the section's opening tag, but it's not clear to me if there's an easy way to put elements inside that section (like add, remove, vegetarian, naughtyWords, etc.).

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Unfortunately the current docs still don't have a code sample.

POP Forums v7.5.1 has been posted to the POP Forums site:
http://www.popforums.com/downloads.htm

The biggest change is a "clean sheet" approach to the text parsing engine.

Still free!

I had really hoped to have the base class library for PF v8 finished by now, but alas, it has taken a back seat to other stuff. I had to get my ad serving software more in order to setup some campaigns I sold, but the good news is that the "distraction" may actually lead to software you can buy. It's a lot cooler than I thought it would be.

The original plan was to get something quasi-functional out by the time Whidbey beta 2 was out, but I don't think that's going to happen. I'm not content with the way things are in terms of features and architecture. I don't want to just hash out a Whidbey-ized v7.x, so I'll take some time with it. Perhaps I can get it done in time for the RTM.

Someone asked why I don't just open it up as a collaborative effort. There are two reasons. First is that the forum continues to be my lab and my education. This thing has been with me now in one form or another for six years. The second thing is that it must meet my needs first. It currently serves as the basis for nearly all of my sites and various projects I've worked on in the last few years.

I can't believe no one else has blogged about this (I saw it from Joe)...

http://maps.google.com/

Wow... drag that map around in the window. Very, very nice.

I got word from the publisher of my first book that they're not interested in the proposal for my second. That's a real bummer. They say it wouldn't stand out enough, despite the fact that it had an endorsement from someone inside of Microsoft.

I partly think that maybe the marketing folks just aren't in touch enough to understand why they're wrong. That's not so much their fault as much as it is mine for not pitching the concept in terms they would understand. The book is essentially an end-to-end case study book that follows the development of a product from idea to publication, including requirements, design, how to do test-driven development and solutions to at least a half-dozen problems that you encounter in practically every app.

Oh well... I'll keep pitching to other publishers and she what happens. One way or another, I'm going to get it "out there" even if I have to publish it myself. It's a natural next step to my first book.

I talked to a developer today that was checking me out for a recruiter. Unfortunately, he was one of these jerks more interested in trying to establish his superiority than finding out what I can do. Don't quiz me about some obscure design pattern that you read about in some book. I'm not impressed.

I'm a problem solver, not an academic. I make things work, and acquire knowledge as it's required of me. That's how I roll, and so far it has served me pretty well.

After encounters like that, I don't think I can go back to cubicle hell.