Update on The Journey!

Just an update on The Journey.
We’ve made a podcast to keep everyone up-to-date, so feel free to check it out here!
Thanks for your prayers and support!

 

The journey part 1: The beginning

Hi family and friends,
We are writing today with mixed emotions ranging from excitement to anxiety. We have made a decision that will impact the rest of our lives. We are starting the journey of adopting through our foster care system! It brings a smile to my face as I write these words, because this is a long time coming. We had pursued adoption 5 years ago with negative results from an agency regarding our Blindness. We prayed that if this wasn’t God’s will that He take the desire away. However, the more we prayed the greater the desire became.
So, here we are…

We’ve done much praying, planning and research in the past month. From homeschooling, to research on various disabilities, the logistics of being foster-adopt parents, raising children in the adminission of the Lord, choosing supplies and child proofing our home. Crazy as it sounds, the research is not even close to being over!
With the agency we have chosen, we will first become foster parents before we adopt. This comes with a couple implications. First, it allows for a faster process. Meaning, a child could be placed with us before parental rights have been terminated and they are legally free for adoption. If we choose to only accept children who are legally free for adoption, our odds of getting a placement in a useful amount of time would be very slim. We are aware that we are taking a big risk by going about this the way we have chosen. The main goal of foster care is to reunify children with their parent(s). However, if that is not possible for whatever reason, that is when they would become legally free for adoption. Furthermore, we are aware that the first child who comes into our home may also leave. This could happen multiple times in fact, and although it will be hard to see these precious ones leave our home, we also know that each child who enters our home needs our love and the love of Jesus Christ.
Contrary to what some may believe, it is also wise to attach to each child. These children need to know that they are safe and loved.

We are seeking one child between 0-3 years of age. Since I teach voice lessons in our home, we have the room for only one child. We chose ages 0-3 so the adoption will have time to be finalized before the child begins being homeschooled. With as much as these young children go through change, we don’t want to have them in the public school system while they’re in foster care, and once the adoption is finalized pull them out to be homeschooled.

We’ve heard that the feelings we will experience as we walk this road of adoption are similar to those of parents expecting their first biological child. We’ve already had some highs and lows, and this journey is far from over!
This coming Tuesday, we will attend our foster care orientation meeting. This will give us an overview of how the foster care system works and what our responsibilities will be. We went to this orientation when we looked in to adoption 5 years ago, so we’re familiar with how it will go. After this orientation, we will go in for an application interview, have a family assessment done (including physicals and providing the agency with 3 references) and go through 15 hours of foster care training.

We know you may have many questions, and we want to be able to answer each of them! We also ask for your prayers, patience, encouragement and support as we walk this journey.
Thank you for traveling with us, and we’ll keep you updated as we walk this road of becoming a child’s forever family!

With Love, Andy and Miranda

 

WordPress by email?

I am testing out a new thing (well at least new to me) from WordPress. It’s the ability to post through email. I have been waiting for something like this for a long time. What do you think of posting through email?

 

Dot Net Nuke

I was looking for a way to create “modules” in asp.net and ran across Dot Net Nuke. It is a free CMS framework that you can use for websites, portals and pretty much whatever you want to use it for. Check it out and let me know what you think.

 

free loops and audio clips

I was looking for some free loops and audio clips earlier today and ran across a website called Partners in Rhyme. I found what I needed. Thanks to them, You can also get your Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects. Don’t forget to download the music and sound effects you need for your multimedia project at Partners In Rhyme today!

 

Using Web Client Software Factory 2.0 with Enterprise Library 4.1

I came across an interesting problem the other day. I had installed WCSF 2.0 and Enterprise Library 4.1 on my computer about a week or so ago. I installed 4.1 instead of 3.1 since it was newer and figured it would probably be a lot better as well.

 

After installing them on top of Visual Studio 2008 SP1, I did the following:

 

1. Start Visual Studio 2008 SP1. You must have already installed WCSF 2 and ent lib 4.1 for this to work.
2. Go to file, then New, and click project…
3. In the new project dialog box, expand Guidance packages, click Web Client Software February 2008 and then click the website or web application solution for your programming language.
4. In the name box, type a name for the solution. This will also become the name of the website or web application project.
5. On the web solution recipe dialog box, uncheck the box to show documentation when finished and then click finish.
6. When the project is created, scroll to the web.config in the website/web application project, right click, and click Edit Enterprise Library configuration.
7. Make some changes. I added an exception handling block.
8. Press control shift v to validate the configuration settings.
9. On the web.config file, right click and click close application. This will attempt to save the settings you just made.
10. An unknown error will show up telling you that you can’t save the settings.
11. Close out of the error windows and the save as dialog.
12. If the errors list isn’t showing, bring it into view. Notice the errors in the list.
13. Close out of the Enterprise Library settings without saving.

 

These errors reference version 3.1 not 4.1. I didn’t realize this until yesterday. Now comes the interesting part. Trying to fix it. I went on a search to see of I could find a way to do this. I found this article. It explains how to update WCSF 2.0 to use Enterprise Library 4.0. You can use it to update to 4.1 as well. All you have to do is reference Version=4.1.0.0 instead of Version=4.0.0.0. Just be careful to leave the Culture and PublicKeyTokens as they are in the 4.0.0.0 references. Let me know how this turned out for you.

 

Creating a multi layered web application the easy way.

The Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) provides a set of guidance for architects and developers building enterprise Web applications. The factory includes samples, reusable code and a guidance package which automates key development tasks from within Visual Studio.
Using the Web Client Software Factory assets, developers can create Composite Web applications composed of independently developed and deployed modules. These modules are dynamically brought together at runtime into a common shell. Additionally the factory includes support for ASP.NET AJAX thus providing users with a richer and more responsive user experience. – Taken from Patterns and practices Web Client Software Factory website

 

Building a multi layered application can be quite hard and complicated. I have been trying to figure it out for the last 2 years. I happened to find the Web Client Software Factory a few days ago. I took a good look at it and tried a few demo projects with it to see how complex it would be to learn. The results?

 

• Easy to setup and install.
• Easy to create the initial solution (not any different from a normal solution).
• The recipes are easy to add and write code for.
• The learning curve for this type of design is very low, especially if you have been in .net development for a while.

 

Pros

 

• All points listed above.
• The UI, business and process layers are separated from each other.
• Modularity. You can reuse any of the modules in other solutions/projects.
• Most of the framework design is already built and coded for you. This is a catch 22, so see Cons below.
• Can make use of the Enterprise Library 4.1 – October 2008 which can make writing code easier.
• Ability to create unit tests for UI, business and process layers.
• Ability to create mock UI designs without having to change any code in the business or process layers.
• More that isn’t listed here. Each person or business can find their own benefits for using WCSF.

Cons

 

• Framework design auto created for you. WCSF automatically builds the framework your application will be built on. If you don’t like auto generated code, this isn’t for you unless you don’t mind having to undo it all.
• Bloated code. If for some reason you decide not to use a feature or part of the required framework, you have code sitting around you will never use. An example is the default Site Map that comes ready to use. If you build your own, it still sits around wasting space.
• No support for multi web application solutions. When you create a WCSF solution, it creates 2 solution folders: Modules where the business modules and foundation modules are stored by default, and Websites where the web client applications are stored. You can add as many modules as you need your web application to use, but you can’t add multiple web client applications to use those modules you created. You are stuck to one web client for each WCSF solution. I have seen different ways to add web applications, but it is a mess and not advised for people who don’t have a good understanding of how solution files are written.

 

After all of this, I have decided to use WCSF for my web applications. I will be posting on how to do different things as I find out more.

 

Love Dare, Day 4

In A previous post, I wrote about how my wife and I were going to go through the Love Dare. This is now day 4. We were able to get through 3 full days. At the end of each day there are journal questions that you have to answer about what happened for that particular day. You can use the questions and the answers you give to them to help you judge your progress through the 40 days. At first (like me), you might not notice a difference during the first day or 2, but that should change shortly. For me, it is day 4 and based on the questions and answers, I can tell a slight difference already. It might not seem like any at first either, but don’t give up. Just because things don’t look like they haven’t changed doesn’t mean they wont. It’s still too early to notice anything major.

 

Your results might vary from mine, but don’t give up whatever happens. I will be posting an update again in a few days.

 

Opening day at Comerica park, oh dear, what a mess!

 

We just got done watching the Detroit Tigers play at home against the Texas Rangers. It seems to be quite a mess (at least for the Rangers). We won 15-2! Hopefully the Tigers can keep up the good work. Do you have any baseball stories to tell? If so what would they happen to be? When you comment, mention what your favorite baseball team is.

 

On your mark! Get set! Love Dare!

My wife and I are involved in a C-group from a church we used to go to in town. Recently, we decided to do the Love Dare. It is a 40 day step by step guide on how to love each other the way God created us to love each other. The original book "Love Dare" was originally meant for couples who were having issues loving each other to the point of breakup and there was only 1 member of the couple interested in loving again. We ourselves aren’t having any marriage issues but we figured that all is going to be better since the book helps couples be stronger in their love for each other. This is what we are always trying to get better at. If you are interested in the book, you can find it at Amazon. To follow up with the Love Dare book, there is also a couples Love Dare study bundle which includes a DVD, 2 “Love Dare” books and 2 Love Dare study guides. This second choice is for couples that wish to do the love dare together. It might be something we will have to look into sometime down the road. If you are interested in the couple study bundle, you can also find it on Amazon. Did you go through the Love Dare? Has it somehow impacted you for the better? If so, I would like to hear your story. Until next time…