Adam Roderick blog

The IframeActivityMonitor is available on github.

Iframes have serious tradeoffs you have to consider when building an application. But I see them in use frequently, and sometimes they are even appropriate.

A difficult scenario is when the parent window needs to track user activity within a child iframe, when the child iframe contains content from a different domain.

In a nutshell, browsers’ same origin policy comes into effect, and JavaScript from the parent is blocked from making function calls, sending events, or adding event listeners to the child iframe content. The iframe’s onload event is sufficient for many needs. But if the iframe itself is a single-page AJAX application, then the onload event will not fire after the first load.

The IframeActivityMonitor is a simple JavaScript object that allows you to receive an event periodically while the user maintains activity within any iframe on the page.

Check out the IframeActivityMonitor on github!

I was excited to try out what I saw in several posts—installing Windows 8 as a bootable VHD. Unfortunately, it would not work for me. The installer would just give me the message that the hard drive was not bootable.

So I opted for VMWare after a little searching showed that someone had that working. I did not have an ISO – I had the bootable USB key that I received at Microsoft’s BUILD conference. So that may be a little different from other experiences.

1. Download VMWare 8.0 and run the installer.
2. Create a virtual machine, and choose the option to install the operating system later.
3. When given the option to choose an operating system, choose Windows 7.
4. VMWare requires a license key to boot the virtual machine. After clicking the button to get the license key, one of the available options is a key for a 30 day free trial.
5. Now the problem with the USB key. VMWare BIOS cannot boot from USB. So I downloaded a handy little boot manager from plop.at. Put in this ISO file as the CD/DVD drive for the virtual machine, and the boot manager takes over the boot sequence. Don’t forget to stare at the flying stars for a moment, and wonder how fast you are going through virtual space.
6. Insert the USB key and attach it to the running virtual machine. Choose to boot from USB.
7. The Windows 8 installer takes over from there.

P.S. Don’t install the VMWare tools. The result will be a black screen.

I gave a presentation at SharePoint Fest Denver on Friday that was very well received.  In a conference full of “click here” and “scripted demo” presentations, my presentation stood out because of its focus on the philosophy behind why and how we do things in SharePoint.  It stemmed from the frustrations I hear from all my SharePoint clients about how difficult it is to remember where anything is in SharePoint.  I have felt the same frustrations, even though I work at a 25-person company and really don’t have a lot of SP content.  Why, if we all spend so much time creating such good hierarchies of information on our SP sites, are we so frustrated with it?

In my preparations for the presentation, I spent a lot of time thinking about analogies.  The waterfall vs. agile software development methodology analogy was very relevant.  Another one that I liked was comparing IA to moving into a house.  With certain pieces of furniture, you know where you are going to put before you even move in.  But other things—like the best place to put your keys so you know where to find them—are decisions better left until well after you move in.  It is not until you observe your behavior, how you interact with the house, where you naturally look for your keys, that you can really be confident that a specific location is where your keys “should” go.

My goal was to explain that there are other perspectives in IA, and that SharePoint has features that can contribute to IA in unexpected ways.  My main points were:

1. We do not have to do as much planning up front as we think we do.
2. IA is not a perfect science, but it has its roots in psychology, library science, and design.
3. Every individual is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all way of organizing information.  We should embrace this instead of fighting it.
4. SharePoint has various features that can contribute to a grassroots-driven taxonomy and IA.

Some of the suggestions of features that could be used to individualize SP and allow IA to develop in a grassroots way:

• Search honing – People naturally move to search when they tire from browsing for content.  Use this to our advantage, and really pay attention to the search logs.  As we learn what users are searching for, configure Best Bets, Keywords, and search scopes to match the search behavior we see.
• Tagging – SharePoint 2010 has great support for tagging.  Why not allow users to tag content, and as we see trends, pull the most popular tags into Managed Term Stores?
• Individualized pages – this is such a simple feature, but allowing users to organize pages the way they want to can create a lot of user buy in.
• Control to the business units – I believe that we should embrace governance plans that allow a gradual relinquishing of control from IT to the business units.
• Publish/Subscribe model – Some of our most successful SharePoint engagements have involved a model where we separate the content creators from the content consumers.  Rather than send everyone to the Marketing tab, create a place where the marketing department can create and publish content.  Allow consumption of the content to be opt-in for the most part, and allow the content to be consumed in various locations, depending on context.

Check out Aspenware’s post of the session.  I was happy so many people came!

Here are some disorganized notes that may give you more insight into my thoughts.

My slides are all but useless as a reference, but available if you want them.

My belief about what is good coding and what is poor is continually evolving. I have a much broader appreciation for creative solutions than I have in the past. Plunkit is being realized only because everyone involved is so open to crazy, it’ll-never-work ideas. A lot of things I am seeing lately, like some of the javascript libraries I have been researching, are becoming acceptable, even though when they were invented they were hacks.

Here is a wonderful example. It describes how today’s Martha Graham animation was created by Google. Go to google.com and watch it. Then go to http://www.acumenholdings.com/blog/… and read about it. You might have to refresh a few times–the site is under load.

Conceptually, it’s pretty easy to understand how the thing works. But before today, when it became a thing that GOOGLE did, you could have shown that code to 90% of the developers in the world and been laughed at. Because of how hacky it is. Because of how non-standard it is. There are times that out-of-the-box solutions while coding are bad–where it is essential to follow patterns. And there are times when only by being original and creative that you can accomplish what you set out to do.

Twitterverse is a dojo sample app developed by Peter Higgins.  It demonstrates several features of dojo.  These steps are for you if you do not have git for Windows installed and want to get a local version of twitterverse up quickly.

First thing, you are going to need to get subversion installed.  Don’t worry, it’s easy.  Get the latest subversion for Windows download from http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=91.  I used version 1.6.6.

Now go get the twitterverse source from https://github.com/phiggins42/twitterverse Click Downloads and choose the .zip version.

Extract the zip file to a directory (I extracted to C:).  The contents should look like this:

Drill down into the src folder and download this file: getdojo.bat.  Put it next to getdojo.sh. 

Run getdojo.bat.  It will download all the dependencies.  Go back up one directory, and open index.html in a browser.  You done!

Have fun digging into the source code to see how dojo works.

I am reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, and came across an observation that reminded me of new year resolutions.  You know, the attempts people make to change themselves, but invariably fail at:

It was about this time I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection…But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I bad imagined. While my care was employ’d in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason.

I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.

I believe that our habits are an important part of who we are and the type of people we become.  I’ve always liked this quote about the cascading effects of our thoughts and habits–for better or for worse:

Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.