Eric Mann's Blog

  • Live Blogging – AJAX Polling

    I’m in the midst of developing a real-time publishing system, and I wanted to give an example of what it is and why I want to do it. Gizmodo’s live blog Today, Apple is promoting a live press event, and Gizmodo is live blogging their coverage on http://live.gizmodo.com/.  It’s a really basic page, but it updates […]

  • Installing a New Engine – Nginx

    I originally started blogging with WordPress via the one-click installer that came standard with a basic Network Solutions website.  It’s been several years since then, and I definitely advise against getting started that way.  There are better hosts out there, and better server systems.  Take your pick. For the past year, I’ve been running my blogs […]

  • One Time Password Security

    My day job has primarily consisted of migrating an old-school ASP.Net WebForms website to a new ASP.Net MVC application.  This has involved a massive layout/structure redesign, database overhaul, and a lot of custom coding. I’m mostly happy with how I structured the MVC-based content management system.  It’s very similar to WordPress … only written in […]

  • Shortcuts in Chrome

    Yesterday, we were bouncing ideas back and forth on Twitter regarding a specific ticket on WordPress’ Trac system.  At one point, a developer lamented the fact that Twitter didn’t automatically link “#18149” to http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18149. I jokingly commented that someone should come up with a Chrome extension to do just that.  Apparently, something that does that already exists. […]

  • Reflecting on a Decade

    Ten years ago today was picture day at my high school.  Despite everything else that happened on September 11, 2001, we all still gathered in the Auxiliary Gym to take our annual year book photos.  Business as usual, except for the tone that overtook the entire day. In every class we sat glued to CNN […]

  • Patience

    I wasn’t born with an abundance of patience.  As a kid, I could rarely sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time, I stayed up all night in anticipation of big events, and I’d often ask “are we there yet” before we got to the end of our street.  Not an atypical story […]

  • Loading Legacy Content in an iFrame

    At my day job, I’m responsible for bringing our various web products up to modern standards.  Right now, that involves pulling our old website off a static, table-based system built with FrontPage and executing a new design using ASP.NET MVC 3. It’s been a fun project so far, except for one major hang-up. We have […]

  • Perseverance

    Every now and then we all come across situations we feel are hopeless.  A project is due with too soon a deadline.  A work task is just beyond our realm of comfortable effort.  An important appointment is endlessly rescheduled.  Our finances never seem to balance income versus expenses. It can be exasperating to keep going. […]

  • A Change of Perspective – Hiking in Yosemite

    I recently picked up Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson and read through it with a small group from my church.  It’s a fantastic, approachable work explaining different ways you can reconnect with your journey to follow after Christ.  The part that stuck with me the most, though, was a single line: “a change of pace […]

  • Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 20

    This is your final task: Write an essay or make a video describing how this challenge has brought reconciliation and/or growth to one of your relationships. Keep your essay to 700 words or less, or keep your video to four minutes or less. It must be completed and submitted by 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 8, […]