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Full screen/background video from YouTube using jQuery

Published on Feb 17, 2020

I was searching the web for some neat ideas and I came across this intriguing jQuery plugin that allows you to embed a YouTube video on your website. No, not the standard player, but instead the video is your background. Similar to how you would use an image or color, the YouTube video plays automatically in full screen as the background of your website; here is a demo of the plugin.

Access query string parameters with Express and Node.js

Published on Feb 15, 2020

Passing data through the URL is a very common practice. As you can see with the URLs on my website, I pass - what I call - a slug of my post title in the URL. In this case: access-query-string-parameters-with-express-and-node-js. With this data I can figure out dynamically what blog post to show. Another common way is to use query string parameters such as ?id=1. There are two common ways that I perform this using Express and Node.js.

If you are not already familiar with Express you can read my article on setting up Express with Node.js before you dive into this blog.

Can't set headers after they are sent

Published on Feb 15, 2020

When you are using Node.js with Express and you've received the dreaded "cannot set headers after they are sent to the client" where do you even begin. This article will explore common causes of this error, such as calling res.writeHead, res.write, or res.redirect.

Why am I receiving cannot set headers after they are sent to the client?

Below are the three most common reasons this error occurs when you are using Express as a web server with Node.js:

Calling res.writeHead to early

Calling res.redirect then setting more data

Calling next after response has been returned

Keep reading for examples of how each of these three common reasons may occur with examples of what the incorrect code will look like and how it can be fixed so you don't continue to receive error [err_http_headers_sent]: cannot set headers after they are sent to the client.

Custom Knockout js binding to confirm before variable change

Published on Feb 9, 2020

Having a user confirm a selection is a very common occurrence when an action is performed. In this Knockout js tutorial I'm going to demonstrate how to ask the user to confirm their choice. Only when the user has clicked OK will the observable value be changed. This example will leverage the ko.extender to create a custom Knockout extender.

Custom Knockout JS Extender

Integrating with Twilio using C#

Published on Feb 7, 2020

I like when integrations like Twilio are simple and straightforward. I recently had the privilege of implementing it for my company. For my implementation I have a couple of special requirements that I think makes my solution better than just referencing a NuGet package and calling MessageResource.Create.

My requirements require creating user controlled text messaging templates and customer controlled enabling/disabling of one or more text messages. Let's get started.