Bnpositive's Blog

Why isn’t there an included function within ASP.NET development to put an export to Word, Excel, CSV or text control on a web page?

I’ve been using Visual Web Developer Express now for awhile and have churned out a number of websites and pages for clients that are very impressive in my opinion.

I would think it would be to Microsoft’s advantage to make it easy for web developers to export the data presented on a web page in a GridView or other .NET control to an Excel spreadsheet very easily.

I’ve searched for some solutions online and they seem simple enough to a degree. I’m trying to implement them on my projects, but it just brings back the question of why this isn’t a button click event that’s available.

Anyone else think this would be helpful?

Okay, here’s another request for a solution I’m publishing out there for my readers. I’m looking for an application that would allow me to setup virtual environments to use when I’m working onsite with different clients.

For example:

When I login to my computer and select my “Client A” workspace; I see all the needed mapped drives and printers that are located on Client A’s network. Potentially even changing my Start Menu to display the applications I use most for Client A.

If I then go to Client B the next day I choose their “workspace” and see all their mapped drives and directory shares as well as their printers. Without my interface being cluttered with the printers located at other clients that I can’t access.

My business partner said there was an application called Mobile Essentials that used to do this, but I can’t find any details about it now and it probably wouldn’t even work with XP or Vista.

Any suggestions?

Why is it I can’t select multiple “Archive Folders” when trying to manage them in Outlook? The fact that I have to right-click on each of them individually to close them from the view is really annoying for this morning.

Somewhat less annoying, but if possible would eliminate this annoyance is the fact that I can’t rename this archive folders permanently.

I have an archive folder for each client directory of e-mails in Outlook. I archive each of them separately to maintain smaller file sizes and also to manage restoring and viewing archived e-mail when necessary.

If someone has an answer to this please let me know. I’ve blogged about it before here and still no manageable solution for me.

Have you seen the Microsoft HealthVault website? Here’s the quick and short of it:

When it’s your job to protect your family’s health, you need every advantage. Imagine if you had a way to collect, store, and share the health information critical to your family’s well-being.

HealthVault is the new and FREE way to do just that.

Imagine controlling the flow of your health information. Whether you need to search the Web for the most up-to-date treatments, catalog existing health records, receive test results, or monitor current physical readings — HealthVault gives you the control you need.

I’ve got to say that I think this is a great idea. It’s irritating to me sometimes that I can’t really find a single life-time report of my health conditions. When you move and change doctors, where do all your health records go that the doctor had while he was seeing you? Are they just gone?

There’s a little bit of concern here for privacy. It’s actually not too much that data would be stolen, but the idea that if the information leaked out, I could start to be denied for things like health insurance and other benefits because of prior health issues.

The flip-side of that coin is the thought that things becoming more public and identified could spur citizens on to take better care of themselves medically. Would that be the case here?

I’m still trying to decide if I sign-up and give it a personal try out. What do you think?

One of the IT people at a client’s office had this Dilbert cartoon taped to her desk and it fits exactly what it is I do the majority of the day at my “real” job. I’m not familiar with the characters so I’m not sure who the triangle-hair lady is or the other guy that kind of looks like me but here’s what they’re saying:

Update: I just found out the names of the characters: They’re Alice and Ted.

Alice: I’ll need to know your requirements before I start to design the software.

Alice: First of all, what are you trying to accomplish?

Ted: I’m trying to make you design my software.

Alice: I mean what are you trying to accomplish with the software?

Ted: I don’t know what I can accomplish until you tell me what the software can do.

Alice: Try to get this concept through your thick skull. The software can do whatever I design it to do!

Ted: [blank expression]

Ted: Can you design it to tell you my requirements?

If anyone can link me to the original display of this comic on the web, please let me know. I think I might get it printed if possible.

Scott Thompson nailed the answer to the question I posted awhile back regarding how to set the default Address Book that’s displayed and searched in Outlook 2007. The only problem now is that it was so simple to fix my problem I feel like an idiot for not having found that setting without any help.

Scott, do you have an answer for how to get people’s fax #’s from not showing up as a potential e-mail location in the address book? Please let me know if you do!

So nobody else will have that same “DUH!” moment I did by asking as stupid question a stupid person asking a question, here are the instructions with screen shots.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a great video. I’m not real sure about the history behind the video, but it looks like they had fans submit videos of themselves singing clips of the song. They then edited them together to make this video.

Technorati Tags: Brad Paisley, Online, Jason Alexander, Marsha Brady, tuba, geek, MySpace

One of my favorite things in life is art, drawings and specifically optical illusions. I love M.C. Escher if that gives you any clues as well. This little video has a lot of my favorite illusions.

Good stuff!

We went to McAlister’s Deli tonight for dinner and my son was lucky enough to get a brownie dessert. I was teasing him and told him the whipped cream smelled weird. I was trying to get him to put his head down to the whipped cream to smell it so I could bump his nose into the whipped cream. He didn’t fall for it, but ended up still getting his nose a little dirty playing around.

Yep, that’s my boy!

Greetings readers.

I just posted an interesting article on my Christian Music Fan blog and thought some of you might also be interested in the details.

Basically there’s a new movie coming out based on a book written by an atheist. The movie trailer looks great, but the plotline of the final two books gets a little more blatantly anti-God and church. In the final book the two kids actually kill God.

Get more details over at the full post on the Christian Music Fan blog The Golden Compass: The Anti-Narnia and Killing God?

In case you’re not already in the Halloween mood, here’s a modern Halloween twist to an old classic.

Uncover some online fun and play Halloween Hangman.