I was having a problem embedding a slide show from Picasa into my BlogEngine.net editor. Basically, the editor kept stripping the embed html.  The trick is to edit \admin\tinyMCE.ascx file.  You need to modify the extended_valid_elements entry. Apparently this is used to define valid html tags for the tinyMCE editor. Here are my additions in red:

extended_valid_elements : "hr[class|width|size|noshade],font[face|size|color|style],span[class|align|style],

script[charset|defer|language|src|type],code,iframe[src|width|height|frameborder|name|style],

embed[type|src|width|height|flashvars|pluginspage]",

Have fun!

If you are a developer using C#, Visual Basic, Javascript and other and need to insert code into your blog posts, you'll need this extension which according to the web site enables you to:

"Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL."

Go HERE to download.

I decided to start experimenting with Blogengine.net, an open-source ASP.NET blogging platform.  Installation was brainless.  Basically, unzip the zip file which you download from here into a directory.  You have the option of downloading just the web site or you may download the entire source. I opted for the web site this time.  You'll need to add a virtual directory under IIS. Make sure it is configured for ASP.NET 2.0. The installation instructions are very good. Follow them and you'll be fine.  Literally, it took me less then 10 minutes to get this site going.

After installation I could run the site flawlessly - quite impressive.  First thing was to change the theme as I wasn't too happy with the default.  This was another simple task. Simply login with the username/password, admin/admin. You'll get an extra set of links for maintaining the blog.  I took care of two things right off, I changed the theme and added my own account.  One of the features of Blogengine.net is the ability to have multiple user accounts. 

I logged off and that was it. I had a blog. The next thing I wanted to do was to get it setup with Windows Live Writer (WLW).  This part didn't go so flawlessly. 

I followed the typically procedure of adding a new Weblog account.  I specified that this was another web log service (not one of the defaults in WLW).  The next page asks for the blog's URL and username/password, I entered those and pressed next.  The next dialog (see figure) surprised me because it asked for a provider type.  I was under the impression that WLW would detect all that information.  Further research indicates that this is not necessarily so.  After several attempts, I could not get WLW to detect my blog.  Fortunately, this can be done using the Metawebblog API (one of the items in the drop down). You'll need to enter the path to the api which is in the format:

http://thedomain/metaweblog.axd

so mine was http://camaro/blogengine/metaweblog.axd

After entering that information, WLW detected my blog and from what I can tell, functions properly. I'll continue to experiment with Blogengine.net and will report my findings. I'm going to be looking into adding additional pages (non blog pages) which is a feature I've been wanting in dasBlog but is not there.

If you're like me, and I am, then you appreciate the ease and debugging capabilities of browsers like Firefox.  However Visual Studio continues to use IE even if you've set Firefox as your default browser in your environment.  Gladly, this can be changed, here's how.

1. In the Solution Explorer, right-click over the .aspx page such as Default.aspx to bring up the context menu.  Select "Browse with..."  This will bring up a Browse With dialog (see figure). 

2. Likely, Firefox will not be in the list. Simply press the "Add..." button, browse to the program directory (c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox), and select the program (Firefox.exe).

3. Press the "Set as Default" button with your preferred browser selected in the list.

4. Note, you can even set the default size of the browser window.

This it! 

This is cool. I just discovered that you can create polls with Google Docs. You basically create a spreadsheet to capture the data you want to examine and provide a link to a live form.  You can email this link or put it on a web site as I have done at the bottom of this post.  To make it work, you first need a Google Docs account.  Then, follow these simple steps.

1. Login to your Google Docs account.

2 Create a new Spreadsheet.

3. Select the Share tab.

4. When asked to give a name to your spreadsheet, give it a meaningful name, specific to your poll like "Favorite Browser".

5. In the Invite People area, there is a new option to "to fill out a form."  Select this radio button.

6. Press the "Start editing your form..." button.  This will launch a different window into which you specify the title, question, help text, etc.  Take special notice of the "Question Type." You have the options of selecting text, paragraph text, multiple choice, checkboxes or choose from a list.  The screen will change depending on the option you select.

7. When you are finished, press "Done."  If you are satisfied with the preview, press "Save"

8. Press the "Next, choose recipients >>" button.

Here, you can invite people, specify preferences, copy the link to the form, etc. 

9. Click on "Go to live form" to start entering data.

10. When you open your spreadsheet, you will see your data.

Take my poll on your Favorite Browser here.

In my post on Blogging Newsletters/Email said I would like to present "teasers" instead of the entire text of my posts in email/feeds so that readers would be encouraged to visit the site (something important for those monitizing their sites).  Feedburner uses a feature called Summary Burner to accomplish this.  To use Summary Burner.

1. Login to Feedburner and click on your feed.

2. Select the Optimize tab (see figure).

3. Select the Summary Burner for the View menu (see Figure)

  4. Specify a Maximum Length and Teaser text to be included in your emails (see Figure).

5. Save your changes. Now when users receive your feeds, your text will be truncated based on the maximum length specified.