Welcome to the new Luktek!

 At the beginning of last year, when I started seriously considering life as an independent developer, I knew I'd need to get a proper site and blog established. I spent some minimal effort getting a Drupal install going with a custom theme, and blogged a few items I had on my list. Then, I actually quit my job and went independent... and haven't had any time for my own site, since!

 Well, business is booming and it seems like I hear from a new potential client every week. The other day, I went to meet one of these new clients, and was admittedly embarrassed to see my website up on the projector in the boardroom. Well, that was it. I've dedicated time from every weekend, since then, to complete this new site.

 Read on for details on the technologies I used to build it.

 If you've used Google Maps API to plot a route, and then tried to find locations near that route, you'll likely have come across their RouteBoxer utility, included in the V3 utility library. Either that, or you're using a database with OpenGIS spatial capabilities, like PostgreSQL.

 Essentially, RouteBoxer lays a grid over your route ...

 In the past year or 2, I must've installed SQL Server 2008 Express dozens of times, and each time I seem to run into the same few configuration issues. Although there are other nuances and caveats to installing this product, the ones I'll document here top my initial check-list.

 Essentially, there are 3 things that I always do on a new installation (or don't do, and then waste a half hour troubleshooting).

As I tool this site up for blogging about dev stuff, I wanted to test this easy-looking syntax highlighter. Let's give her a whirl, shall we?

[Update: I'm now using Google's Prettify, instead]

using System.Web.Mvc;
 
namespace Web.Controllers
{
    [Authorize]
    public class MainController : BaseController
    {
        public ActionResult Default()
        {
            return View();
        }
    }
}

Sexy, ain't it?

 With all the code I write, and all the little hacks and tricks I find along the way, it's about time to start logging them somewhere. So, without further adieu, I'm pleased to introduce the Luktek weblog.

 Of course, time will tell if I can really keep this thing going but, for now, I know there's a backlog of things I want to share. This includes stuff about software development in general, and specifically the technologies I currently employ like ASP.NET MVC, jQuery, SQL Server, Windows 2008, IIS, and a little PHP, for good measure.