I went out with my Dad this weekend, and had a pretty good time. I'm not great yet, but I'm beginning to really like it. :-) I would have never thought I would like hitting a little white ball around a perfectly manicured yard, but I got a hold of one that went at least 290 - 300 yards! That's the shot that keeps ya comin' back for more! It was just 10 - 20 yards from the hole, but took me another 4 shots to sink it. Yes, my short game needs some SERIOUS help.
I asked Darrylin (my wife) if she wanted to go out, but she said she tried it once when she was younger and hated it. Oh well, she has her things she likes to do. I just have to try and get as many games as I can in before I go back to school. Things get quite hectic around here!
Until next time............
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
ASP.NET 2.0 - Lessons Learned
This is just an initial post and I'll add details when I sort everything out, but if you're having performance issues with the Personal Web Starter Kit included with Visual Studio 2005 then this might interest you.
The starter kit is a good base to get someone going and learn ASP.NET programming. I used it to revamp the Wargo Family site and it worked pretty well, except for the initial page load. (We'll talk about initial setup growing pains later!) Depending on the time of day, the initial load could take up to a minute and sometimes timeout and not load at all. It was very frustrating and Microsoft's help and Google searches didn't really touch on exact issues, but many sites made references to a possible issue with database performance dragging down the web application. Upon further investigation, I found some possible solutions. Many were very complex and required rewriting a few pages and the background VB code to display the random picture from the photo album. This randomize procedure was probably the culprit in the bogging down the page due to calling many other procedures and using multiple database calls. I began to look into this, but my lack of knowledge in the ASP.NET arena severely hindered my progress. Was there a way to alter just the MsSQL SELECT statement so it didn't load ALL of the fields to pick a random picture? Yes! (Again, details will come later once I sift it all out.)
Changing the SELECT statement in the GetPhotos stored procedure from '*' (selecting every field) to a narrowed list and not having to actually SELECT the actual picture (the JPEG sizes vary) greatly improved performance. The initial load is now consistently under 5 seconds! The pointer to the picture is randomly selected then the picture is downloaded for display. The original method would get slower and slower as the number of albums and pictures increases. Imagine having hundreds of pictures and selecting every one of them out of the database to just display one random "Picture of the Day"? I'll have to also track down the site where I saw this suggestion because I would like to give credit where credit is due. A big thanks to the currently unknown site!
Anyway, even though I'm not officially in class I'm still hacking away. I think the end result looks a little more professional and polished than my straight HTML rendered page. I can see how PHP, .NET, and other server side scripting languages are gaining popularity. Data driven web sites awesome! Sometimes a feel like a crack addict - the computer is my crack! I go more than a couple of days and withdrawal symptoms set in. Stay tuned - details to come...
The starter kit is a good base to get someone going and learn ASP.NET programming. I used it to revamp the Wargo Family site and it worked pretty well, except for the initial page load. (We'll talk about initial setup growing pains later!) Depending on the time of day, the initial load could take up to a minute and sometimes timeout and not load at all. It was very frustrating and Microsoft's help and Google searches didn't really touch on exact issues, but many sites made references to a possible issue with database performance dragging down the web application. Upon further investigation, I found some possible solutions. Many were very complex and required rewriting a few pages and the background VB code to display the random picture from the photo album. This randomize procedure was probably the culprit in the bogging down the page due to calling many other procedures and using multiple database calls. I began to look into this, but my lack of knowledge in the ASP.NET arena severely hindered my progress. Was there a way to alter just the MsSQL SELECT statement so it didn't load ALL of the fields to pick a random picture? Yes! (Again, details will come later once I sift it all out.)
Changing the SELECT statement in the GetPhotos stored procedure from '*' (selecting every field) to a narrowed list and not having to actually SELECT the actual picture (the JPEG sizes vary) greatly improved performance. The initial load is now consistently under 5 seconds! The pointer to the picture is randomly selected then the picture is downloaded for display. The original method would get slower and slower as the number of albums and pictures increases. Imagine having hundreds of pictures and selecting every one of them out of the database to just display one random "Picture of the Day"? I'll have to also track down the site where I saw this suggestion because I would like to give credit where credit is due. A big thanks to the currently unknown site!
Anyway, even though I'm not officially in class I'm still hacking away. I think the end result looks a little more professional and polished than my straight HTML rendered page. I can see how PHP, .NET, and other server side scripting languages are gaining popularity. Data driven web sites awesome! Sometimes a feel like a crack addict - the computer is my crack! I go more than a couple of days and withdrawal symptoms set in. Stay tuned - details to come...
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