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Version 1.1.1 of the eHow Earnings Tracker is available on the downloads page. Only one change in this version:
* Fixed a bug where sorting columns on days that articles were deleted would cause “Change from previous day” field to continually increase.
When you have your own domain, one of the things that you inevitably need to deal with is managing the files on it. At some point you are going to need to upload, download, rename, or delete something. Unfortunately, the web based tools (such as cpanel) provided by web hosts are generally clunky and annoying to use. Fortunately, there is a better way and that way is FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
One way to use FTP is to install an FTP client, but an easier way is to just use Windows Explorer. Start by opening Windows Explorer (you can use Window key + E as a shortcut). In the address bar, type “ftp://[your domain logon ID]@[your domain name]” and hit enter. For example, if my domain logon id was “user”, I would type “ftp://user@17of26.com”. Note that if you just type “ftp://[your domain name]” then you will wind up in the publicly accessible FTP directory on your domain, which is generally not what you want.
Using FTP with Windows Explorer in Vista
After hitting enter, you will be prompted for your password. Type in your password and hit enter or click the “Log On” button.
Log On Dialog Box
Once you’ve logged in successfully, you’ll be able to access the files on your domain the same way as you would files on your local hard drive:
Much Better – Using Windows Explorer to Manage Files on Your Domain
The Fisher-Price Kid Tough Portable DVD Player
My family has two of these, one of each color, and our kids love them (my two year old refers to hers as “my pink TV”). The DVD players look and feel sturdy and the buttons are all large and easy to press. At two and four years old, my kids can easily hold the players in their laps and they have no problems operating the controls. My four year old can open the player and swap the DVD out for another one without a hitch.
There’s just one problem – neither one of them work any more. Both units were manufactured in September of 2008. The blue one was put into use just after that, and the pink one started getting use back in the spring. Both players have been treated very well, the kids tend to sit in one place with them and about the only physical action the players have seen is the opening of the lid to swap DVDs. I’m not even sure that either one has ever been dropped. The volume control on the blue player won’t work at all (and of course, it’s stuck on off) and the pink player just flat out doesn’t work at all. Very disappointing considering what they were designed for and how expensive they were.
I need to call Fisher-Price and find out if they can do anything for me, but the product has been discontinued so I may be out of luck.
Version 1.1.0 of the eHow Earnings Tracker is available on the downloads page. Changes are as follows:
* Changed error message “This is not an eHow Earnings page!” to “The eHow Earnings Tracker must be run from your Article Library (the ‘Articles’ tab under ‘My Profile’)”
* Added “Update Earnings using Yesterday’s Date” menu option. This is useful if you didn’t get a chance to run the Tracker yesterday but you know that the earnings haven’t yet updated today.
* Added “Average of X per day” for both earnings and views. Note that this average is over the selected date range.
Looking for a free text editor on Windows that doesn’t suck? Look no further than Notepad++. Notepad++ is a fantastic light-weight text editor that I’ve been using for a few years now. It’s very easy to use and has syntax highlighting for nearly 50 languages. I use it to edit any text that doesn’t need to be compiled by Visual Studio 
. It also integrates into Windows Explorer so you can open files with Notepad++ via the context menu.
Finally, Notepad++ has a plugin architecture so if it doesn’t already have something you need, odds are that someone wrote a plugin to do it. You can find a list of Notepad++ plugins here.
Using Notepad++ to develop the eHow Earnings Tracker
Version 1.0.2 of the eHow Earnings Tracker is available on the downloads page. There’s only one change in this version:
* “Change from previous day” values now take deleted articles into account so there are no longer negative changes.
A while back, I decided that I was going to use C# and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to implement any Windows desktop applications that I write. I had some exposure to both technologies at my last job and want to learn more of them. I liked what I saw of the C# language and I think that WPF is a fantastic platform for developing user interfaces.
When coming up to speed on new programming technologies, I really prefer using books to get started rather than searching online. Books are great for a couple of reasons:
1) A solid chunk of information in one spot rather than having to piece together bits scattered all over the internet. A book is also usually presented in a logical order with the early chapters being basic fundamentals and subsequent chapters building on that.
2) A book has been reviewed and edited so that the information in it is almost always accurate (although sometimes a bit out of date). When you find a random article through Google you really have no idea if the information presented is accurate in any way. And even worse, the information you find is often not dated so you don’t even know if it’s recent.
Google is your best friend when trying to find an answer to a specific question, but it’s really hard to to know what questions to ask when you are unfamiliar with the topic at hand.
I’ve been using the following books to learn C#/WPF:
I got this book a few years ago and it’s decent as an introduction to the C# language. It goes over all of the C# syntax and language features – it’s not bad, but not great either. The major downside is that it only covers version 2.0 of the language (3.0 has been out for a while, and 4.0 is on the way). There is an updated version, Professional C# 2008
I’m still working my way through this book, but so far it’s fantastic. The book focuses on detailed explanations of the advanced features that were added in C# 2.0 and 3.0. If you want to really understand of inner workings of the C# language – this book is for you. Due to the advanced topics that it covers, the book assumes that you already know the basics of C#.
This book starts off with talking about the history of UI development, covering both Windows drawing and web UI design. It outlines the flaws in these previous approaches to UI development and explains the technical design goals of WPF. It’s interesting background information and I found it helpful to know the motivations behind the design of WPF. The rest of the book covers a set of carefully selected topics in great detail. It’s by no means a comprehensive reference for WPF, but what the book does cover it covers very well. There’s a lot of “how” and “why” explained so that you get a full understanding of each topic. The book is written with a good sense of humor so it’s very easy to read. As of this writing, it’s also the most recent WPF book published and covers .NET 3.5 SP1.
This book is big (863 pages) and covers a wide range of WPF topics with a good amount of detail. Like WPF In Action, the writing style is excellent and the authors make the material relatively easy to understand. Its topic coverage is a little different than WPF In Action (with some overlap, obviously) so the two books complement each other well.
One task that every home computer user needs to do from time to time is to troubleshoot their internet connection. Even for computer savvy users this task can be a bit of a chore. A web page isn’t loading – is the problem with the website? Is it my computer? Is it my router? Is it my cable/dsl modem? Is it my ISP? Is it none of the above? For inexperienced users, trying to resolve the problem can be overwhelming.
Finding the source of a network connection problem often requires one of more of the following:
Not only does a user need to know about how run several different tools, they also have to know how to interpret the results. My goal is to write a single application that will be able to walk the user through (and perform when possible) all of the troubleshooting steps needed to diagnose a broken network connection.
The requirements for the application are as follows:
I would really like this application to be something that is useful for everyone. Too many tools are targeted solely at users who already know what they’re doing.
The idea here is that advanced users (like me) will be able to do network troubleshooting by running one tool instead of several. Novice users will be able to do their own troubleshooting and not have to bother computer savvy friends or relatives every time their network connection goes south 
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If you have any comments, questions, or would like to participate in beta testing when it’s ready then head over to the forums.
Not that there’s much to talk about here yet, but I added some forums to the site. Hopefully things will get a bit more interesting around here when I announce my next project…
The Leapster 2 is a great hand held electronic game designed for preschoolers. My 3 year old son loves his – he can operate it by himself, including changing the cartridges. We had a bit of a crisis when the touch screen mysteriously stopped working. Fortunately, it turned out that the touch screen just needed to be recalibrated. To recalibrate the touch screen on a Leapster 2, just use the following steps: