Eric Garrison's Personal Blog

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Tags: Beats, Hip-Hop
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This needs to be said first: I am brand new to ASP.NET MVC 3.  Before about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I didn’t really care about MVC, nor did I have any real desire to learn it.  What changed my mind was the work group I work in, and the unwillingness some people in that group have to learn new things.  I didn’t want to get left behind, so I decided to choose something that was gaining a lot of support, both from developers and Microsoft as well, and that was MVC.  Now, with that said, keep in mind I’ve only been coding MVC for about 2 weeks max.  The issue that I ran into last night, was I wanted to display a simple notification to the user when they updated their support ticket in the ticketing application I’m working on.  I found 3 very different implementations of a notification system last night, but felt that they were a little too complex for what I wanted to do.  The outcome of my research last night led me to building an extremely simplified combination of all 3 implementations.  For reference, the 3 implementations I found are:

http://blogs.planetcloud.co.uk/mygreatdiscovery/post/Using-TempData-to-display-notifications.aspx (Ben)

http://www.digitaltoolfactory.net/blog/2011/05/how-to-do-a-cool-flash-notification-message-in-asp-net-mvc-3-in-6-easy-steps/

http://blogs.taiga.nl/martijn/2011/05/03/keep-your-users-informed-with-asp-net-mvc/ (Martijn)

I used the simplified display from Ben’s example, the jQuery from Digital Tool Factory’s example and the look and feel from Martijn’s example.  This allowed me to basically have my own implementation of the notification system that did exactly what I wanted and looked the way I want.  The end result looks like this:

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Tags: C#, jQuery, MVC3, Notifications, Source Code
Posted in Programming |  | 2 Comments »

This is the first track I’ve started and finished since last year.  Check it out and comments are appreciated.

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I’m teaching tomorrow’s Sunday School lesson since it falls on the 5th Sunday of May.  This lesson comes from Revelation 22:1-9 and discusses John’s vision of heaven, or New Jerusalem that was shown to him by an angel of God.  It gives an accurate description of what the saints can expect to see.  I’ve written my short notes for the lesson and posted them here.  As always, I ask for your prayers and if you have any feedback or comments on this, please post them here.  Thank you and God bless.

Sunday School – 5-29-11 – Appreciating Abundance

Tags: New Salem, Revelation, Sunday School
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The Lord has blessed me to see another weekend, and with that, He has also given me another opportunity to teach his word.  I’ll be teaching my Sunday School class this Sunday, and in preparation, I’ve already gotten my notes together for the lesson.  The lesson comes from 1 Timomthy 5:1-8 and 17-22.  The highlights for this lesson are as follows:

• The younger generation is instructed to approach their elders, and others, in a specific way.  This includes specific instructions for approaching an older man and a younger man, as well as approaching an older woman and a younger woman.
• Paul instructs us on taking care of our family.
• Paul also instructs us on taking care of our pastor financially.
• There are specific instructions on when, and how, charges, allegations or accusations are brought forth against a pastor.

I’ve created a PDF for my notes and you can download them by clicking on the link below.  As always, all comments and questions are appreciated.  Thanks and have a blessed day.

Sunday School – 3-27-11 – All in the Family

Tags: 1 Timothy, New Salem, Sunday School
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Hello everyone

This is my second video tutorial for developing Windows Phone 7 applications.  This tutorial is on using the IsolatedStorageSettings class to save your application settings.  The Silverlight player is below and the link to the full screen version is below that.  Also, the link to the source code for this example is below as well.  Enjoy, and please leave any comments you have in the comments section.  Thanks.

Play Video

Full Resolution Video Here

Source Code (Right-Click and Save As)

Tags: Expression Blend, Silverlight, Source Code, Video Tutorial, Visual Studio, Windows Phone 7
Posted in Programming |  | 1 Comment »

Hello everyone,

This is my first video tutorial. I decided to do this on something very simple, but also on something I’ve seen a lot of people having trouble with. This tutorial will focus on how to change the default application icon and tile background along with changing the default splash screen for a Windows Phone 7 application. You can watch the tutorial with the embedded player, or check it out with the link below.

Play Video

Full Resolution Video Here

As always, thanks for watching and enjoy. Please leave any comments or questions you have here in the comments section, or use the contact page to send me an email. Please let me know if this information has been helpful and if there are any tutorial requests, please ask as well. Thanks.

Eric G.

Tags: Silverlight, Video Tutorial, Visual Studio, Windows Phone 7
Posted in Programming |  | 3 Comments »

Well, this is the first new track I’ve started and finished in almost a year and a half.  I worked on it Sunday after church, and the mood I was in motivated me to make this.  I titled this track “Reborn” because that’s how I feel about myself and my life right now.  God has been too good for me to “not” be reborn, and I need the things in my life to reflect this as well.  Please listen and enjoy.  As always, let me know what you think in the comments.

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The Lord has blessed me with another opportunity to teach his word this Sunday, and I have decided to post my notes for this lesson again.  The name of this lesson is “Keeping Commitment” and comes from Acts 28:16-25b, 28-31.  As usual, you can find the link to my notes below.  It is a Microsoft Word document in the 2007-2010 format (Docx).  I hope that all who this are blessed by it as well.  Thank you.

Keeping Commitment (Sunday School 8-29-10)

Tags: Acts, New Salem, Sunday School
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These are my notes for August 22, 2010 Sunday School lesson.  The name of the lesson is “Finding Peace” and comes from Philippians 4:2-14.  This is probably my 5th or 6th time teaching my Sunday School class this year, and decided to share my notes on this as well.  The format is Microsoft Word 2010 (Docx).  For all of those that are interested, the download link is below.  Read it and be blessed.

Finding Peace (Sunday School 8-22-10)

Tags: New Salem, Philippians, Sunday School
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Updated (12-8-2010): My suppressor is now currently on order.  I’m waiting on the serial number so the Form 4 paperwork can be filled out and submitted to the ATF.

This is for my first custom built AR-15.  This shoots 5.56/.223 ammunition along with .22LR with the .22LR drop-in conversion kit.  This has been a very fun project, and wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would before I started.  This has been a long time coming, as I’ve had my lower receiver for the better part of 2yrs now, and am just now getting around to finally building the thing.  Of course prices are a little bit higher now, but they’re not too bad if you know where to look for good deals.

Most of my parts are from either DPMS or Yankee Hill Machine (YHM) with a couple of key parts from Spike’s Tactical.  The lower assembly has a DPMS lower parts kit and Pardus butt-stock assembly.  The upper receiver is made by Aero Precision and has a DPMS forward assist, charging handle and ejection port cover, while the bolt carrier group, barrel and rails are from YHM.  Also from YHM are their QDS flip up front and rear sights, phantom flash hider and ss phantom sound suppressor (on order).  I have my parts list below for those that are interested, and the gallery is after the jump.

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Tags: Aero Precision, AR-15, DPMS, MagPul, Primary Arms, PTG, Spike's Tactical, YHM
Posted in Firearms |  | 2 Comments »

Just a quick update. The site is now running on WordPress 3.0.1. I updated using the auto-update feature of WordPress, and everything went smoothly until I tried to test the site after the update. There was an error on the function require(./wp-blog-header.php). FYI to others who may experience similar problems. If you get the following error:

Warning: require(./wp-blog-header.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\HostingSpaces\ericg\nfynite.com\wwwroot\index.php on line 17

Warning: require(./wp-blog-header.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\HostingSpaces\ericg\nfynite.com\wwwroot\index.php on line 17

Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required './wp-blog-header.php' (include_path='.;C:\php5\pear') in C:\HostingSpaces\ericg\nfynite.com\wwwroot\index.php on line 17

You may have the same problem I did.  To solve this problem, I had to modify the index.php file.  If your WordPress installation is running in your root directory, then you need to change the following line:

require('./wp-blog-header.php');

To this:

require('wp-blog-header.php');

That’s it.  After I changed that, things worked normally again.  If your WordPress installation is not running in the root directory, then you just need to insert the path to your header file.  Hope this helps someone who has a the same problem.

Eric G.

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For those that have been to my site before, you’ll notice that all of the content that was here previously is now gone. I’ve switched to a new web host (Arvixe.com), and decided to start over from scratch with the new site, and along with that, I’m starting over with WordPress 3.0. I’ll be working to get the site set up the way I want along with adding new content soon. Check back for updates frequently!

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