Schedulicity – Make and manage reservations online

Our new scheduling site is now up and running! It was designed to make it easier for you to schedule appointments with the local service providers you visit, such as your hair stylists, massage therapists, personal trainers, ad infinitum, and add/cancel appointments with a single click.

You may now access businesses after hours or when your service provider is unavailable to answer the phone.  If you are a business or independent service provider, try it out free!

Using LINQ to Automatically Protect Your Application from SQL Injection

Developing a secure application is always a challenge. Security, unfortunately, is often the last thing that is thought of when applications are created. On a tight schedule, in circumstances where corners need to be cut, application security often suffers.

SQL Injection Attacks are something that every application developer must keep an eye on when they are building their application. Traditionally, parameterized queries are used to prevent SQL injection.

When LINQ to SQL code is executed, queries are automatically parameterized for you. If a developer rushes something or adequate time is not devoted to security during their project, there is a higher likelihood that their applications will be protected from these attacks.

For example, the following LINQ select statement:

from person in dbo.Person
where person.Name ==
txtPersonName.Text
select person;

translates to:

SELECT [t0].[PersonID], [t0].[PersonName],
   FROM [dbo].[Person] AS [t0]
   WHERE [t0].[PersonName] = @p0

Although there are other things to consider when securing your application, I hope this tidbit can bring a little peace of mind to you and your client.

Coding Tip: Centering an Element With CSS.

A few times I’ve run into snags when centering elements in CSS, but I looked around the web and found this elegant little gem:

#MyClass
{
    left: 50%;
    margin-left: -140px;
    width: 280px;
}

The Current Problem with Facebook.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. It’s great for getting back in touch and keeping in touch.  It makes communicating with my friends a breeze. The (Twitter rip-off) status updates keep it interesting almost every time I return to the site.  But, let’s face it, Facebook helps people promote themselves, and that’s what it’s all really about. We all shout, “HERE IS WHO I AM AND HERE IS WHAT I AM DOING”.

But what about privacy on Facebook?  I guess privacy would be counter-productive to the whole point of Facebook, right?  Here is the Google search result count for “facebook privacy concerns”:

Results 1 – 10 of about 21,000,000 for facebook privacy concerns.

Herein lies the social awkwardness of Facebook. I’m only willing to post what I feel will be acceptable given my entire group of friends.  In other words, I post only what I’m comfortable knowing what my 78 friends of various personalities,  religious backgrounds, social tolerances, etc., will find interesting (and unoffensive).

So, it’s time to get honest for a second.

My real relationships with my friends and family are different.  I have some friends I play racquetball with.  I have some friends who are former or current business colleagues.  I have old high-school friends.  The social dynamic of my family is much more intimate than the social dynamic of my friends and acquaintances.  Every year “the guys” and I get together for a family-free weekend at the lake, and we reminisce and we play some poker and have a few beers and believe me, we talk about things we’d never talk about with other people.  I occasionally swear in front of some friends, but I won’t in front of my more religious friends – out of respect for their beliefs.  I have acquaintances in my Facebook Friends List, but I also have good, good friends who know everything about me.  I talk about different things with different people because the underlying reasons we have a relationship in the first place is different.  The “topic” of our relationship is different.

Further, because of the web, I now have several anonymous relationships with people.  People who give me startup or programming advice or who I give advice to on public bulletin boards; or people I buy/sell products from;  or people I communicate with on Digg, Reddit, etc,.  I would rarely invite any of these people into my personal life, but I am pleased to converse with them on an anonymous level.

In addition, the social groups I am describing overlap.  In other words, I may have one or more underlying reasons to have a relationship with another person.

The current state of the social networking art doesn’t help me with this problem.  It’s all or one – I either communicate with everybody or just an individual.  I can’t broadcast a message to one handful of my friends and another message to another handful of my friends.

But, Kevin, what about Facebook Groups, you ask?  My observations are that Facebook Groups are about promotion, as well.  They were an afterthought, and it shows.  To illustrate my point, try to imagine creating a “Fight Club”-style group on Facebook that nobody knows anything about except the members and that would never appear in a Facebook group search.

So what am I doing about it?  Like any good serial entrepeneur with OCD and problems going to bed early, I am creating a startup.  It’s not an easy problem to solve, but I have some interesting ideas.  Stay tuned for details.

Twizti.com – Have Fun with your Pictures!

I just launched one of my personal “side-projects” for your enjoyment… twizti.com.

It allows you to upload a picture and “tweak” it by adding something funny – a mullet, ‘fro, caption, etc, without the help of high-end photo editing software like Photoshop.

Here’s an example of a picture I created with it:

Honda – An Amazing Success Story

Just read an interesting article on Honda at Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0904/112.html

“Honda has never had an unprofitable year. It has never had to lay off employees.”

Being an entrepreneur, I have profound respect for this fact. To run a company of this size so well is truly impressive. Larger companies don’t turn on a dime. The markets fluctuate, at times affecting nearly everyone. Can it possibly be luck that they have been able to roll with the tides so effectively, or are they just so fundamentally sound that nothing can budge them?

I think it’s important to recognize that one of the main reasons they are so successful is that they empower their employees. They don’t dictate. Rather, they allow their employees to suggest and innovate; in doing so, they give everybody a chance to shine.

Hat’s off, Honda. I hope to someday be this good at running a company.