Blog
Diplo LinkChecker for Umbraco
A free Link Checker package for Umbraco CMS
Diplo LinkChecker is a free Link Checker package for the Umbraco CMS that I devdeloped. It checks for broken links in all pages in your Umbraco website. It is available for download from the Umbraco package repository (Deli). . More »
Small is Beautiful - .NET Micro ORMs
A quick look at Massive, Simple.Data, Peta Poco and Dapper
In this blog post I look into the rise of "micro" ORMs for .NET. The new generation of light-weight, single-file objects mappers are designed to be the answer to the "bloat" of the heavy-weight Object Relational Mappers. Performance, speed and simplicity are the key words - but can they live up to the hype? . More »
Creating a Paged List in Umbraco using Razor
How to create a paginated list of nodes using Razor script in Umbraco 4.7
In this blog post I'll show you how to display a paginated list of Umbraco pages using the new Razor scripting language added to Umbraco 4.7. I'll also show you how you can make use of extension methods and Razor helpers to improve your code and make it more re-usable. . More »
Using Razor in Umbraco 4.7
How to use strongly-typed Razor macros in Umbraco 4.7x with intellisense support
In this blog post I'll show you everything you need to know to get started using Razor scripting in Umbraco 4.7. I'll also illustrate how to get full intellisense support for your Razor views in Visual Studio along with strongly-typed lambda expressions for full LINQ support. . More »
Installing and Using Git Source Control on Windows
Including integration with Visual Studio and GUI Extensions
In this blog post I'll show you how to install Git version control software on Windows as well as looking at some of the most popular graphical tools for Git, such as Git Extensions and Git Source Control Provider for Microsoft Visual Studio. . More »
Creating a Simple Image Gallery in Umbraco
Using XSLT, ImageGen and jQuery
In this blog post I'll show you how to create a simple photo gallery for the Umbraco CMS. The gallery will generate HTML using some custom XSLT and this will be enhanced by a jQuery ligthtbox plugin. Behind the scenes we also use the ImageGen package to create thumbnails of the photos in the gallery. . More »
Using jQuery Templates to Bind to JSON data
Quickly display Flickr photos using jQuery Ajax and Templates
In this post I'll show you how you can use the new jQuery Templates plug-in to easily bind JSON data (returned from a simple Ajax request) to HTML. For the example we will be using the Flickr API to show a list of the latest photographs from the public timeline. . More »
Android Apps Roundup February 2011
Some of the best free Android phone apps as of February 2011
In this post I'll list some of the best, free Android phone apps I've found since getting my ZTE Blade Android phone last month (January 2011). I'll try and avoid the apps you probably already have and instead concentrate on the more unusual or obscure apps you might have missed. . More »
Simple jQuery Background Image Rotator
In this post I explain how I created a very simple jQuery plug-in that can be used to rotate a sequence of images as the background image on any element. I also explain how this plug-in differs from a standard carousel in it intent and execution. The post contains a demonstration and a download option. . More »
Orange San Francisco Android Phone
A cheap Android smartphone for under a £100
My first venture into the world of Android smartphones after purchasing the Orange San Francisco (ZTE Blade) for under £100. A bargain phone running a great operating system that is easily customised and tweaked. . More »
LoveFilm API
Fun with the LOVEFiLM API
I recently signed up to the LOVEFiLM DVD and Blu-Ray rental service. But the developer in me also noticed they have a development API - and here I take a look at what you can do using it. . More »
Manipulating Querystrings in Csharp and .NET
A small library to help parse and manipulate querystring paramaters in C#
If you're an ASP.NET developer then sooner or later you will come across an occasion when you want to manipulate or parse values from the current request's querystring. To make this easier I developed a very small C# library that enables developers to easily manipulate the querystring collection. It has useful methods to add, remove, replace, count and parse values. . More »
Eating Animals
Jonothan Safran Foer’s latest book
My thoughts about Jonothan Safran Foer’s thought-provoking book, 'Eating Animals', in which he takes a philosophical look at the debate around the ethics of eating meat. . More »
OAuth with Twitter API in C# and .NET
How to use OAuth authorisation when consuming the Twitter API from C#
In this blog post I guide you through the trials and tribulations you have to go through to use OAuth authorisation when consuming the Twitter API in C# and .NET. I show you how you can use the free Hammock for REST C# library to abstract away the REST calls to the API . To top it off I also include a full working library I developed to make the whole authentication process much simpler - this comes with an example website and Visual Studio solution that you can download and use. . More »
The Tarnished Generation
Or why we delude ourselves that the English are good at football
We seem to labour under a delusion in this country that our national football team, England, are good at kicking the leather sphere around. This is despite not winning or even featured prominently in a major competition for nearly 45 years. But who really are our so-called Golden Generation and why do we have so much faith in them? . More »
Umbraco XML Sitemap
Creating an XML (Google) Sitemap for Umbraco using LinqToXml
In this post I want to show you how to automatically generate an XML (Google) sitemap for an Umbraco CMS site. The code uses the Umbraco API, LinqToXml and a generic .ashx hander to do this in one small file. . More »
New Website Launched
It's been a long time coming
Today I finally get around to updating my website. But being a web developer by trade I can't just add a bit of new content and make a few design changes. Oh no. That's just too easy. Instead I have to re-write the whole damned thing from scratch in a completely different technology... Here's the low-down. . More »
Keeping Things Compact
Optimising your CSS and JavaScript files
This post looks at free online tools that can help compact and optimise your CSS style-sheets and JavaScript files. This will ensure your website loads quickly and will also keep your code concise and fast. . More »
Subtitles
Don't let the world of foreign language TV and film pass you by
In this post I praise the hidden world of foreign-language cinema and TV that we rarely experience in the English speaker world. I also wonder why we see so few sub-titled drams on British TV. . More »
Fair Votes Now
Why we desperately need electoral reform in the UK
Playing around with the BBC Election Seat Calculator for the 2010 UK general election further convinced me what an un-fair and un-democratic system "first past the post" really is. This is why we need electoral reform to provide "fair votes" for everyone. . More »
