This year I said one of my goals is to ride in a century, a 100 mile bike ride. I’ve chosen the LIVESTRONG Challenge in Davis California on June 24, 2012.

As part of the ride I have set a goal to raise $1,000. You can donate to my campaign at https://laf.livestrong.org/goto/chrishammond

All I am asking is that you donate $5 (more if you like) to the cause. Just $5 to help people around the world effected by Cancer. Below is more info on why I am riding in the LIVESTRONG Challenge this year.

My Story

I am riding the 105 mile distance at the 2012 Team LIVESTRONG Challenge Davis for four special people in my life, all affected by cancer. As part of the event I have set a goal of raising $1,000, I would appreciate any amount that you can donate to my cause, you can use the link on the left side of this page to DONATE NOW.

Who am I riding for?

I am riding the #LSCDavis for four people, all affected by cancer.

My father Bill was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in August 2011, he had treatment for the cancer in November 2011 and we are hopeful that it was caught early enough to be eradicated by the treatment. (Photo right with my daughter Jacqueline on her first birthday 10/9/2011)

My uncle John, married to my father's sister, has been battling cancer for a number of years now.

My auntie Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer and successfully beat the disease.

One of my best friend's mother Janice was very recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is going through the treatment process now.

These close friends and family are my motivation for doing the LIVESTRONG Challenge in Davis this year. As of January of 2012 the longest bike ride I've ever done was 30.3 miles, that was in August 2011. If all goes as planned, I will surpass that total multiple times this year. Please stay tuned to my training and ride results by checking out the LIVESTRONG blog posts here no my site.

Waking up late this morning, missing the opportunity to ride due to weather, I logged into Facebook and came across this great video that was posted today.

Being new into bicycling I can honestly say that I don't say much of these things yet, but I yearn for the day

This video was put together by PeopleForBikes.org be sure to check out their website.

While spending a bit of time this weekend working on a new color scheme for ChrisHammond.com I came across the need to be able to add a hyperlink to an image (html IMG tag) using jquery. Why would I want to do that? Well, to be honest I didn’t want to go in and modify the “skin” on my DotNetNuke site, but I did want to create a link on the “HeaderGraphic” image in the skin. Originally that image didn’t link anywhere, now, as I am working on fundraising for the The LIVESTRONG Challenge Davis even on June 24, 2012, I wanted to link that graphic to my “Philanthropy” page.

Doing this in jQuery is rather easy to do assuming you have a way to target the element, in this case I can target the .HeaderGraphic class (part of the MultiFunction skin for DotNetNuke).

Here is the sample code for adding a hyperlink to an image using jQuery.

<script>
    $(document).ready(function(){
        $('.HeaderGraphic').wrap( 
                 $('<a>').attr('href', '/philanthropy.aspx')
        );
    });
</script>

In order to safely embed this into a DotNetNuke page I’ve added it into the Header setting in the Module Settings for one of the modules at the bottom. That particular module is configured to Display On All pages using the module settings.

If you found this code to be help, I ask that you please donate to my cause on the Philanthropy page. Donate what you feel is appropriate.

Last year I purchased a 2011 Cannondale Quick CX 1 to start riding on my quest to hit 500 miles for the year. I was able to do that fairly easily on the bike, it is a great machine.

As I am getting more into riding though I wanted to do longer distance road riding, and continue to use the Quick CX 1, but on a different basis than I did in 2011. I intended to take that bike, with the OEM wheels, and put a set of mountain bike tires on it and use it as a semi mountain bike trail bike.

My awesome brother sent me a set of 29x2.1” mountain bike tires, and I picked up some tubes at REI a few weeks ago. This evening I tried to put the tires on the rim, the first thing I ran into was thinking that there was no way the tire would mount to the rim, it looked huge with the likely hood of it fitting being very small.

Well I was wrong about that, the tire and tube went together well and everything fit on the rim nicely. That is when it went downhill though. I put the wheel on the bike and immediately noticed it wouldn’t rotate, I figured I had the quick release off and the disc brake was rubbing. Upon further inspection though, after resetting the quick release I noticed that the tire was actually rubbing on the top of the fork. Here’s a picture of the original tire and fork, taken after removing the MTB tire and tube.

So I guess the answer to the question, if the question is “Will a 29x2.1” tire fit on a 2011 Cannondale Quick CX 1?” is NO. Unfortunately it will not.

I’m still going to try to find something that will work on the bike though, I would like to use it off road more, though I don’t think I’m ready to invest in a full on mountain bike anytime soon as I still see putting in a lot more road miles this year.

So this is Part 7 of my CommunityServer to DotNetNuke blog series, unfortunately it is well over 7 months late, but better late than never I say. This will be a quick blog post talking about “URLs” and how you can handle the old CommunityServer URLs and redirect them to the proper DotNetNuke URLs. Why would you do this? SEO, bookmarks and existing links. You want people that try to access the CS urls to be redirected properly to the appropriate DotNetNuke URL, be it for a forum post, blog post, or other. This post isn’t going to cover all the specifics, as there are too many possible variations based on the configuration of your specific website, but hopefully it will provide you an overview of how I handled things in my conversion, and get you on the way to handling them in your conversion.

I’ve been one to do a lot of time lapse videos, I’ve actually been doing them since 2006, I think this was my first one, it is at least the oldest one I could find on YouTube. Over the years I have used a number of different cameras, different software and as you can see from my YouTube Channel different subjects (predominantly cars, though lots of them).

One of the things that I’ve been trying to do while riding is figure out how to record my rides, for a couple of reasons. 1) To create cool creative videos. 2) To document events, who knows what can happen on the road, having video proof could help out some day. I think I can safely say that #2 is a far better, easier to attain, idea, than #1. And when you come up with a reason that justifies #2, you likely have something worth using for #1.

As I get more and more into cycling I am looking for more and more things to get my cycling. I live in Half Moon Bay, and while my wife is started to ride as well, it is hard for us to get out for long rides because we have a 15 month old baby (15 months today!, happy 15 months Jacqueline). While we get out occasionally with the baby in tow, we typically each ride solo.

For 2011 I personally set 3 goals, you can read about them fully on my post from 1/1/2011. Basically they were to lose 30 lbs (goal weight of 255, I’m a big guy), inline skate 100 miles (I do like me some skating, I’m a freak I know this) and ride a bike 500 miles. At the beginning of 2011 the bike I had was a 2004 Diamondback XTS Moto, not exactly something you could see yourself riding 500 miles on (at least not me). So in June I picked up a Cannondale Quick CX 1 and began my journey.

I set my alarm this morning for 6am, with plans to get in a 45 minute ride before I took a shower and came in to work. I went to bed around 11pm last night, read for a while, and tossed and turned until about 2am, I guess those cookies and milk at 9:30pm weren’t such a good idea as the sugars kept me up.

6am came and my alarm went off, at first I turned it off and decided I would sleep in. Then I lay there thinking “Get up you lazy ass, go ride” so I did. I got up, and peered out the blinds to see what the sun was starting to do.

It was dark outside, very dark, with no hint of sunshine.

If you are looking for tips at taking 365 photos in a year, check out the list at the end of the article. As many of you know, or should, I planned to do a couple of things in 2011 in terms of blogging and photo taking.

1. Blog every day
2. Post a photo of myself taken every day #Flickr365
3. Post a photo of Jacqueline taken every day #Baby365

Well, I only completed one of those things (#Baby365), but I must admit I am glad about which one I did complete and the ones I didn’t!

Every day in 2011 Natalie or myself took a photo of Jacqueline, and while we didn’t always get them posted to flickr the same day, I think we did get that done on at least 355 of those days. You might think, oh that isn't hard, taking a photo, so what. Well I tel you what, it wasn't easy. Try doing ANYTHING out of the ordinary for 365 straight days, it takes some effort.

#Baby365 Photos

You can see the full collection of the #Baby365 photos in the Flickr Set found here (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chammond/sets/72157625597966645/).

All along I had plans of doing something more with the photos, and while I am not completed with everything, I have two things you can see online now.

#Baby365 Videos

The first is you can see a compilation video of the 365 photos set to music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kHmTe2hNMM

Then of course there is the faster cropped version, which I personally prefer. I think it shows an interesting view of Jacqueline growing up over the past year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFnhpweyzoE

She has grown up a lot over the past year, too fast if you ask myself or Natalie, but that is how parenthood goes.

2012 #Toddler366

Stay tuned for #Toddler365 #Toddler366 here for 2012 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chammond/sets/72157628676234297/)

Some tips if you are thinking of doing any #Baby365, #Toddler365 or #Anything365.

These are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head that should help you with your project. I will try to update the list if I think of anything else.

1. Set a reminder on your phone/computer to remind you EVERY day to do something, possibly two reminders
2. Don't clear the reminder until it is done, there is no snooze here, leave it on
3. Use a good camera, we have a number of days that were taken with Natalie's phone and they leave a lot to be desired
4. Be diligent about tagging and uploading photos into a Set on Flickr. If you name them, tag them, etc, it makes them easier to find/organize later
5. Check out Downloadr from https://janten.com/downloadr/ at the end of the year to download and organize the photos if you want to create a video like I did. You might think you can pull all the photos from your original collection, but that can be a bear depending on how you organize things. Also if you don't have all the photos in your collection (I use Lightroom) but you do have all the photos on Flickr, Downloadr helps immensly.
6. Try to take a full face photo every time, we didn't for 2011 and I think things could have turned out a lot better if we had tried to do that.
7. Make sure your camera keeps EXIF data and you have it enabled in Flickr, it makes sorting things a lot easier (sorting your set of photos on flickr, sorting your photos to create a video, etc)

Asking $1600 local (delivery extra, I have small vehicles so transport is a pain). Currently located in Half Moon Bay, California, just south of San Francisco. It looks like 2012 will be a no go for me (no budget to get the car where it needs to be) so I am going to part ways with my beautiful 18x10" +38 Enkei RPF1s. The wheels currently have 18" 305 Kumho 710s mounted, plenty of tread left, though not competitive nationally, great for local/regional events.

I see that the GoPro HD Hero2 came out with a new Firmware update on 12/15/2011. I’ve been waiting for a firmware update to enable the 3d functionality on the new cameras since I received them back in November.

I installed the Firmware update using CineForm Studio (see the steps to upgrade the firmware (as of 12/16/2011) below.

The best I can tell, this V.58 firmware update does not enable the 3D functionality on the Hero2. I spent some time playing around with it, and was unable to get the two cameras to properly sync up when connected with the sync cable. First I could only get one to boot up, but I was eventually able to get both booted after removing the sync cable and inserting it again.

I would love to try to record Christmas this year in 3d, though I doubt we’ll see another firmware update again before the end of the year. I think V.58 was released to fix some exposure issues on time lapse caused by a previous update, but I don’t know that for sure.

Hopefully in the future GoPro will take the time to post a Changelog for their Firmware updates.

Steps to upgrade GoPro HD Hero2 Firmware (follow at your own risk)

1. Have CineForm Studio installed on your computer
2. Turn off, un plug, have a full charge and SD card in the camera, have CineForm Studio off
3. Turn on your HD Hero2
4. Plug the camera into your computer via USB
5. Open CineForm Studio
6. Wait for the update available message to appear (if there is one)
7. Click update

Please follow the directions carefully, and check https://gopro.com/support/hd-hero2-firmware-update/ for further instructions.

I am not responsible if you damage your camera (I’ve done it before to my own camera)

Well another Movember has come and gone, we are now 2+ weeks into December, and I am finally getting the time to get this blog post together. It has been a busy 6 weeks with DotNetNuke World, holidays here in the United States, and planning for 2012 here within the DotNetNuke Corporation.

A quick blog post as we near the final day of Movember 2011.

Thank to all of you who have taken the time to grow your fine Mo's (mustaches) for the past 30 days. Also thank you to those of you who started your mo's but caved to the weight that carrying a Mo brings, your efforts are still appreciated!

 

The weekend before Thanksgiving I decided to strap one of my new GoPro HD Hero2 cameras on to my bicycle helmet and take it with me for a ride. I ended up with 1.5 hours of video, rather than let you watch the entire boring (wind filled) ride, I took some of the clips and put them together into a short video.

I have attempted to set new years resolutions in the past, but I typically failed at them, and most times I failed quite early on. For this year I set 3 goals, 1 of them I am pretty confident I won’t hit, more on that later, but two of them I had/have every intention of hitting.

Last Wednesday I went for a ride at lunch time with a coworker of mine. I decided to take the GoPro Camera along with me for the ride, though not attached to the bike itself, or to me, I attached it to a 3 foot pole, that I mounted to the front of the bike. If you’re thinking “boy, that sounds like it won’t work” you are correct. It didn’t work out very well, the pole wasn’t near stable enough for the camera, so it made for a very wobbly video of the ride. I still think it is interesting though, so I editing, sped up, slowed down, and uploaded it to YouTube. You can see it here.

Do you work for one of our many DotNetNuke Partners? Are you already thinking about participating in Movember? Have I got a challenge for you.

Form a team for your company, you can do so via Movember.com, and then join the DotNetNuke Network! The partner that raises the most money for Movember

Dear DotNetNuke Community,

Movember is coming up, and I am getting the DotNetNuke Team going again this year. For those of you who weren’t with the company last year Movember is this. You start with a clean shaven face on November 1^st, and grow a mustache (not a beard, not a goatee) for the ENTIRE month, to raise awareness (and money) for cancers that effect men, primarily prostate cancer.

First things first, I had no idea why they are called clipless pedals, and I still doubt the reasoning I read. I am actually going to call them CLIP pedals, because that is what they really are. More on that later. So, I went to a pedal other than a standard platform, and boy am I glad I did! A couple of weeks ago I ordered a pair of shoes with the intention of getting some pedals to go along with them, Friday the pedals arrived. Saturday the wife and I (and baby) went to the pumpkin festival here in Half Moon Bay, taking the baby and trailer for the two mile drive to avoid sitting in traffic for which likely would have taken 30+ minutes. I didn’t want to try the new pedals for this trip, so I waited until Sunday to install the pedals.

With all of the changes to DotNetNuke 6, a lot can be lost in the fact that you actually maintain the content of your website, and while the maintenance UI has changed, the content that you present is still up to you. A CMS can only do so much for displaying you content, if you want to do some fancy things, branch out of your standard HTML.

I recently wanted to do a couple of things for my car website (yes, I’m a car guy, so it is easy to use the website for examples).

1. I wanted to have a random image loaded in the top portion of the pages of the website, changing, or randomly loading, on each page load (not rotating live on the page).
2. I wanted to display a list of recent photos on the home page, and when you click on one of them I wanted them to open up in a light box.

I could have done this in any number of ways, but I chose to implement some simple jQuery for each, below I will show you how.

First things first, the website uses my free DotNetNuke skin, MultiFunction, available via Codeplex. I have some example documentation on how to customize the CSS for the skin to make your site unique, feel free to check out the Documentation page for those examples.

Have you ever had the need to blog a range of IP Addresses from accessing your website? Or perhaps, setup a website that is only accessible to a specific range of IP Addresses? DotNetNuke Request Filters are a great tool for getting such functionality configured, all configurable within your browser, without needing access to the settings in IIS.

Before configuring the request filters, I’ll throw out an example of why you might do this. If your website has a forum, or other community type interface, you have likely experienced spammers trying to take advantage of these features. Sometimes these spammers come from a specific IP Address, or even a specific range of ip addresses. If that is the case, you may want to turn off your website for those IP Addresses.

A word of warning, the instructions below are very powerful, if you aren’t careful, you could bring your website down. Read through the instructions before attempting to configure your website’s request filters.

Configuring your DotNetNuke website to be accessible from one IP Address

Here are the steps to configure request filtering for an IP Address, essentially making the website ONLY accessible to a person browsing from a computer using the defined IP address. All other addresses will redirect to DotNetNuke.com. (these instructions assume you are running on DotNetNuke 6+

It is a very common question, and asked all over the place, twitter, the forums, blogs, etc. Who do you use for DotNetNuke Hosting? Well, I have recently spent some time moving all of my websites around, and figured I would do a quick post on what I am currently using for hosting.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up this Tamiya Tracked Vehicle Chassis Kit with the intention of using it with my Netduino. I put it together, but didn’t get around to doing anything with the kit and the Netduino until tonight. Part of the reason I didn’t get it going was the fact that I didn’t have my Adafruit Motor Shield together, I managed to get that completed over the weekend (minus one solder I found that I had missed tonight). Read the full post for all the details!