I’ve been testing Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 today. To make sure it wouldn’t overwrite my existing installation of Firefox 2, I installed the portable edition which can be downloaded from here.

Firefox 3 is all that you have probably read already. It is much faster than 2.0. It has some nice new features which make it a more usable browser and it has some nice security features which should make your browsing experience safer.

The features I like the best on the new Firefox are the redesign memory management and the faster execution of JavaScript. By their nature, Web 2.0 websites relied heavily on JavaScript. So these website perform incredibly better in Firefox 3. As many of you know, I created PhotoPoints. I’m in the process of slowly recoding PhotoPoints and make it a Web 2.0 site. So I was looking forward to Firefox 3 and see how the new site will perform. It makes a huge difference.

While working in SharepPoint I needed, from an UserControl in my WebPart, find a control in the page. Of course, I tried, different level at which to apply the FindControl(). The first thing I tried was this.Parent.Page.FindControl(“controlID”). That didn’t work. Then I tried different permutations. Finally I gave up with the FindControl and decided that I would do it the old fashion way. I’ll walk the tree. Here is some sample code how to do that.

Control PViewer = null;               

                foreach (Control Ctrl in this.Parent.Page.Controls)

                {

                    PViewer = FindMyControl(Ctrl,”MyControlID”);

                    if (PViewer != null)

                    {

                        break;

                    }

                }

private Control FindMyControl (Control ctrl, string controlID)

        {

            Control Ret = null;

            foreach (Control Ctrl in ctrl.Controls)

            {

                if (Ctrl.ID != null && Ctrl.ID.ToLower() == controlID.ToLower())               

                {                   

                    Ret = Ctrl;

                    break;

                }

                else

                {

                    Ret = FindMyControl (Ctrl,controlID);

                    if (Ret != null)

                    {

                        break;

                    }

                }

            }

            return Ret;

        }

Of course if you examine the code you will notice that I’m walking the tree recursively calling the FindMyControl method over and over again until I find the control I’m looking for.

Don’t forget the test for null in the if (Ctrl.ID != null && Ctrl.ID.ToLower() == controlID.ToLower()) statement. Of course make sure the test for null comes first. J

A friend of mine wrote this song and Catherine Smitko sings it.

Audio will begin 42 seconds into the video

Consider supporting our troops. Only $0.99 you will be supporting the Intrepid Fallen Heroes fund.

It looks as if Aksel Svindal is out for the season. This was a horrific accident. I wish him well.

Mr. Svindal is one of the most talented racers in the circuit. It is always a joy to watch him race.

If you read my Copper Mountain Early Experience post, you would probably know how much of a different experience it would had been being at Grand Targhee with so much terrain open.

Gran Targhee open with 1500 acres, the most of any Rockies resort.

Last weekend we spent it at Copper Mountain, Colorado.

It was not as enjoyable of an experience as it was in the previous years at this time. The crowds were way too thick and Patrol didn’t do its job in my opinion.

When we got there Friday afternoon, we skied two runs before we decided that it was better to go back to our room and enjoy the rest of the afternoon walking around.

On both Saturday and Sunday, we skied for 2 hours early in the morning before we called it the day.

Patrol could have done a better job of speed control. I don’t mind people skiing fast when they are under control and it is not terribly crowded. But seeing people, skiers and snowboarders alike, going down full speed without even making a turn to control speed was insane.

On Saturday we even decided to go to the green side to see if it would be less crowded (no black terrain was open.) What we found was a Team Summit snowboarding team of probably six athletes and a coach. They were all going downhill next to each other occupying the width of the run at full speed. I know that when the ski teams train in public terrain only one athelete goes down at the time. But not these guys, they were going down together.

Overall, not a great experience. One could say to me that I should had expected not enough snow or terrain open at the beginning of the season and I would 100% agree. But what really disappointed me this trip was the lack of control from Copper Patrol. I mean even the head of mountain operations got plowed by a snowboarder and had a dislocated shoulder on Friday.

Can you try getting a hit off this guy? You'd be lucky if you can touch the ball unless you put your entire body infront of the strike zone.