If you are a user of foursquare then you are already using what is essentially a location-based tagging application.

Places is rolling out in the US before anywhere else so until further notice we will just have to continue typing in where we are.

Read more about it at Facebook Places.

<customErrors mode="Off" defaultRedirect="/system/error/">
  <error statusCode="403" redirect="/system/access-denied/" />
  <error statusCode="404" redirect="/system/error-404/" />
</customErrors>

For the corresponding /system/error-404/ aspx page template we had code as follows to make sure the page template did not return a 200 status code which it does by default (which doesn’t look too good on traffic analysis reports).

Response.StatusCode = 404;

However, in IIS 7.0 if you set this, then IIS 7.0 custom errors take over and you will get a stock standard IIS 404 page, which is pretty annoying seeing as you’ve gone to all that trouble to make your custom error page!

So, this little workaround/hack is available on the response:

Response.TrySkipIisCustomErrors = true;

This allows you to set the status code on your custom asp.net error page and avoid IIS getting tangled up in the response leaving your lovely custom error page intact, hooray!

Important: It should be noted by developers that this problem only appears when you deploy code away from your development machine as the IIS Error Pages feature disables enforces it’s own custom error pages for remote access to IIS by default.

Here’s the code, we use a class to do the selection and the rel attribute to help define the validation group so we can only hide the button if the form has been validated successfully.

<asp:Button ID=”btnProceed” runat=”server” CssClass=”submit-once” rel=”UserProfile” ValidationGroup=”UserProfile”  Text=”Proceed” OnClick=”btnProceed_Click”  />

And here’s the sprinkling of jquery you will need (stick it in you base master page for example).

$(document).ready(function() {

// ensure that buttons are only clicked once with this class

$(“.submit-once”).click(function() {

if (Page_ClientValidate($(this).attr(“rel”))) {

$(this).after(“Please wait..”).hide();

}

});

});

Culture Options – UI and Content Cultures

The Administration > Users section allows the setting of the Preferred content culture and the Preferred user interface culture. These values normally set at (default) but what does all this actually mean?

It is recommended to not explicitly set the culture for users and to let the defaults be used. Unless a user explicitly wishes to override, assuming this culture is supported.

Content Culture

Content cultures determine the actual content culture stored against Kentico documents as they are saved. If you have a multilingual site there are multiple documents stored for each culture against a single ‘node’.

N.B There is always a default content culture for a Kentico site.

List of all content cultures

The available list of all available content cultures are at Site Manager > Development > Cultures. All major cultures are provided here and you shouldn’t need to modify this list.

Setting the default content culture

You can set this in two ways (both have the same effect).

• Site Manager > Sites > [Site Instance] > Default content culture
• Site Manager -> Settings -> (select site) -> Web site -> Default culture of the content

What this means is that the default culture for all documents will be this value (e.g. en-NZ). If a user has (default) saved against their ‘Preferred content culture’ they will then see the default content culture for the Site they are viewing if they are logged in.

The default content culture should be set first in any Kentico implementation.

Setting the default visitor culture

You can set this in the following ways:

• Site Manager > Sites > [Site Instance] > Default visitor culture
• Site Manager > Sites > [Site Instance] > Domain Aliases > [Domain Alias Instance] > Default visitor culture

What this means is, if a user comes to the site anonymously, this is the culture that will be used by default to display to visitors and this can be managed on a domain alias level also.

For a site without multilingual capabilities it would normally be the same as the default content culture, but one may wish to have a French version of a site under a different domain in which case the default visitor culture setting would be set to French.

If this is not set, then the user’s browser settings will be used to determine the default visitor culture.

It is recommended that the default visitor culture always be set to match the default content culture by default.

Site manage > Sites > [Site Instance] > Cultures

This section allows you to set all the cultures that are being supported for a particular Kentico site. Note that this will affect the selectable cultures from within the cmsdesk administration interface for a particular website.

It is recommended that these values always be explicitly set when setting up a Kentico instance. If not a multilingual site allow only a single culture which matches the supported default content culture.

UI Culture

The UI Culture is the culture of the CMSDesk administration interface. Out of the box (OOTB), Kentico uses en-us (US English).

UI Cultures are stored within Site Manager > Development > UI Cultures. You will see there is an ‘English’ option, but this actually corresponds to en-us (US English). If you want to allow users to select between this and UK English for example within CMSDesk you should create a new UI Culture called English (NZ) and set the code to en-NZ.

If a user has (default) saved against their ‘Preferred user interface culture’ they will then see the CMS Desk interface using the culture defined in the AppSetting.config file for that website (there doesn’t appear to be a corresponding value within Site Manager). This value should be set to a sensible default to avoid users having to change it themselves. For a site managed from New Zealand it should be:

<add key=”CMSDefaultUICulture” value=”en-NZ”/>

It is recommended that this value always be explicitly set when setting up a Kentico instance.

A very brave guy from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team in Redmond will be presenting the upcoming IE8 browser, followed by Robert O’Callahan from the Auckland Mozilla team that are working on the next version of Firefox. I’m impressed that Microsoft are doing this and I hope that the open source guys don’t give him too much trouble!

The agenda was set before anyone even knew about Google’s Chrome browser. 2008 is going to be the year of major browser releases and the implications for the web dev community are massive. I highly recommend making the effort to come along to this one.

1. Will I stop being cool when I get old?
2. Will I lose my hair when I get old?
3. Will I lose touch with new technologies when I get old?

I think its a safe bet to say I will never stop being cool, so forget that. Loosing my hair is inevitable (thanks Dad), however there are drugs and a number of rad hats to fix this. So this just leaves our last problem…

Over the years I was known as the tech kid. Not only was I more up to date than Vista Service Pack 1 (Oh wait..) but I could explain it all to you in a language that didn’t sound like a mixture of cling-on and C++. And if I didn’t know it? I would have had it learned before the next time we met.

However over the last few weeks at the ripe old age of 20 I have noticed myself slowing down. With paying bills, cleaning my own house, collecting records that shaped my childhood and trying to finish my friggin degree (stop laughing Jon), the bright lights and shiny icons of a new web tool or the latest OS X update don’t seem to get me as excited as they used to.

They say eventually you become, or at least have traits of what your parents are, and looking at my Dad I can see the pending doom. Once the ultimate nerds nerd, owning one of the first personal computers in South Africa he too was also on the constant quest for the coolest and fastest tech equipment. Now not to say my Dad has lost any of this, he still keeps up to date with everything going on and even out guns me on the latest release of whatever, but I have noticed him slipping into what I like to call the “I-don’t-really-care-that-much-about-the-newest-release” syndrome. A couple weeks after gifting him a brand new iPod Touch, I noticed it still sitting in his car, not really doing much. When I asked him about this he simply said “I don’t like or get iTunes, I like having all my mp3′s in a folder and my current mp3 software (Winamp… cringe)”.

I then started to notice this in myself. With half our office now sporting brand new iPhones (I’m not even on the 3G model yet), there is constant talk about what cool apps can do this or that. From emulating a light saber to making a monkey run in a ball around a track, there is everything. As cool as all of this is, all I could think was, “You paid money for this?”

A prime example of my slipping into this syndrome was with the release of Google’s Chrome browser.

Firstly, I didn’t even know about it until a few hours before its release which shocked me. Secondly, I just didn’t really care. Sure, I downloaded the beta. Sure, I even booted up VMWare Fusion and gave it a whirl. But after 10 minutes in, all I could think was that Firefox and Safari do everything I want, and none of these supposed new things really had me Googling up hacks or articles on it. Maybe this is just what growing old is about? I will have to confer with more senior members of staff.

Don’t get me wrong, I will always stay current with whatever is going on in the industry and blogesphere and probably out nerd the best, but I put this up as a warning. Internet superstar kids beware – you will eventually become a victim of the “I-don’t-really-care-that-much-about-the-newest-release” syndrome. I do however offer some advice for those of you who are currently at this point, or long past it:

1) Load up your RSS reader with all of the latest and greatest blogs (you’ll find they all link to each other some how). Even if you don’t read everything in there, you can at least glance at the headlines and pretend you’ve heard about it when confronted by fellow nerds.

2) Latch onto a more enthusiastic and up to date nerd (I, for example, have chosen Calvin) and leech all information from them. In fact, keep them close at hand so that when you do find yourself in a tight spot at the latest Web Meet Up you have your wing man to save your ass.

3) Get an iPhone and have the Google search icon front and center on your screen. That way when you hear the internet elite throwing around terms you’ve never heard before, you can do a quick Google search while pretending to update your Twitter status and carry on the conversation like you’ve been coding Ruby on Rails your whole life.

Take these lessons and go forward with confidence. Next time you see me I’ll be balding and sporting a nice tartan cardigan.

“We wanted to make WYD08 a unique experience by using new ways to connect with today’s tech-savvy youth,” Bishop Anthony Fisher said in a statement on Wednesday.

Via Reuters

The HDDDBB, if you will.

Nexcopy’s USB Duplicator, the USB200PC, will most definitely be on my Christmas list this year. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve stayed up late copying movies, TV shows and music to friends USB drives till the wee hours of the morn. Now I don’t have to! Besides being completely useful, it’s design is something out of the Jetsons. Very retro-futuristic.

And I supposed its good for large companies who distribute portable data to customer and employees as well.

via Oh Gizmo

I have often cracked the joke about my boss (not too smart on my part) being overloaded with gadgets, from his I Phone to bluetooth headset, multiple chat accounts and an addiction to Twitter. The result of this is that he is wired everywhere and in constant reach.

I come to write about this on the day my Blackberry has finally given up the ghost. At first I was a little bothered by the loss of my device and the convenience it had brought me. For those not familiar with the Blackberry it is a phone that receives emails as well. The result of this technology is that you are available at all times.

Not having the blackberry has made me realise how invasive it was and how I was constantly checking the device waiting for some kind of contact. Rather than being a time saver I actually believe the devices take up more time by acting as a distraction and the time it takes to write an email when you are all thumbs.

I have often heard that technology was supposed to be our saviour and return our sacred time to spend outside of work and with our friends and families. In fact in many ways it has done the opposite, the more we embrace it the blurrier the line becomes between work and home. I have often caught myself writing emails at a dinner party or having my phone on the dining room table while I eat, even checking an email while fishing (You can see where the name Crackberry comes from).

If this sounds like a tirade against technology, it is not, after all I am the proud owner of a Nintega Mega 360. All I am saying is that we do need balance in our lives and need to be able separate our work from our home life a little better

So I suppose as my boss reads this he will be busily ordering me another one or maybe jumping up and down on his bluetooth headset! Freeeddoommm

Lifehacker.com has the low-down on what this all means:

If official third-party app support piques your interest most, Apple delivered with some exciting announcements. First, if you’ve already jailbroken you iPhone or iTouch and experienced what installing apps is like through the excellent Installer.app, Apple’s official application management software, called the App Store, works just like Installer.app; it allows you to install, manage, update, or uninstall any application directly from your device, either over EDGE or Wi-Fi. Unlike Installer.app, the official App Store integrates with iTunes so you can also sideload apps through iTunes if you don’t feel like installing on-the-go.

Although we could all see this coming, one of the big concerns was whether Apple would start charging for the 3rd party iPhone apps. It turns out that they are leaving that up to the developers, they can choose whether or not to charge for the apps they make.

The App Store won’t be available till about June, which is when the iPhone 2.0 update is expected as well.

See Lifehacker.com for the full story.