Mike Valstar

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Web Development, Programming, Random Thoughts

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Jade template for RSS 2.0

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When coding an RSS feed for this site I saw that there really was no simple RSS templates written in jade. (Specifically since this site uses the Express framework, jade is already built in. ) I decided to create a jade template that will cover just about anyones needs for an RSS feed.

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Coding with Node.js: Part 4; Storing Blog Posts

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With the admin login page completed we now need a list of blog entries and a way to create and edit them. So to start lets give ourselves an admin interface for blog posts that we can later integrate into the main website.

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Coding with Node.js: Part 3.1; Mongoose Sessions

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This is a supplemental post to the previous tutorial to add in session handling into Mongo. You may have noticed after the last tutorial that when running the code in production you are alerted that Connect does not recommend the use of in-memory session storage for productions systems.

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Coding with Node.js: Part 3; Admin login with Mongo & Mongoose.

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Now that we have a working website model with error pages and some useful content the next step is to connect to a database so that we can later administer the content of the website and store it in the database.

For this tutorial we are going to setup a simple login system into mongo with the help of mongoose. In the next tutorial add in the blog posts to the database.

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Coding with Node.js: Part 2; Error Handling and 404 pages with Express.

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The next step for coding a website (for me) is to setup the error and 404 pages. The 404 page to be used to display something useful to the user when something cannot be found. A nice error page can also be helpful in debugging and for informing the general public that an error has occurred on your website.

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Simple Hashbang URLs and Google

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websites are increasingly becoming more and more dynamically loaded as opposed to a full page download for every page on a website. This website in particular is using Hashbang (shebang) style page loading to make page transitions more seamless; but this presents a problem both with google search and google analytics. I'll discuss how I manage both of these problems and how you can design a website with seamless page transition as well as tracking these page changes with google analytics.

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Coding with Node.js: Part 1; Getting started with Express.

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I have once again decided to rewrite and this time in node.js, I have rewritten the site both as a tutorial for new node.js developers as well as a personal blog and project page.

Since college I have primarily been a PHP developer, building OOP websites with a combination of PHP, Smarty, PDO and other good practice techniques; however since the birth of node I followed the development of the project and more recently started using node for my production projects. Node has proved to be a great tool for rapidly creating websites both semi-static and highly interactional; it is highly responsive and is a better fit for progressively loaded pages over PHP and most other languages I have used in the past.

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Fitbit vs. UP - Day 1

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For the last year or so I have been on a bit of a diet and exercise routine in order to get myself in shape and more recently I have increased my level of workout and decreased my calorie intake somewhat. A few weeks ago I bought myself a Fitbit to help me better track my daily exercise and overall fitness level as well as weight and sleeping habits asa bonus. Last week however I started seeing a myriad of reviews and information about the new Jawbone Up and was starting to think I might be missing out on something.

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Brand New Once Again

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In what has become an annual tradition; I have re-written the website again. And this time I've re-written it in node.js. I do plan on taking better care of the website this time around and devoting a little more time to my other projects including gentoo-portage.com and gentoo-wiki.com as well as my newer projects e.g. medusajs.

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Mike Valstar © 2011