Chad Dalton

Greenwood Middle School boys XC 22 and 0 after first week

2008-09-15T07:49:00.001-05:00

Week #1 of cross country madness has come to an end. It's too bad that the athletic department crammed 3 meets into the first week. Still, the Greenwood Middle School boys cross country team went 22-0. That's right, 22-0! On Tuesday the boys beat Custer Baker and Perry Meridian. On Thursday they out ran Center Grove Central and Franklin Township East. Then on Saturday they finished 1st out of 18 schools at the 7th annual Eagle Classic. Here's a pic from the Eagle Classic (not very photogenic but they are fast):

David had a great week. He has been training since early summer for this. And, his hard work has paid off. Stay tuned. It only gets better!

Add xap MIME type to IIS in order to host Silverlight 2

2008-09-02T09:44:00.001-05:00

Having trouble hosting a Silverlight 2 app on IIS? As I discovered recently when I created a Silverlight home page for my personal web site (chaddalton.com), it's possible that you are missing the xap MIME type. The xap file type is in essence a zip file in which the Silverlight assemblies and resources have been compressed and stored. To view the contents of the xap file in a Silverlight project simply rename it giving it a zip file extension and view it as you would any other zip file.

To add the MIME type:

Navigation from the IIS Manager: [YourWebSite] > Properties > HTTP Headers > MIME Types ... > New

More information is available at IIS.net.

.NET Magic

2008-08-26T12:47:00.001-05:00

How can a StringDictionary key disappear? "It can't" you say. I agree. So, why does this test fail?

StringDictionary dictionary = new StringDictionary();dictionary.Add("Item1", "Here is Item1");dictionary.Add("Item2", "Here is Item2");dictionary.Add("Item3", "Here is Item3");// PassesAssert.AreEqual(true, dictionary.ContainsKey("Item1"));List<string> listOfKeys = new List<string>();foreach (string key in dictionary.Keys){    listOfKeys.Add(key);}// FailsAssert.AreEqual(true, listOfKeys.Contains("Item1"));

The answer is simple ... yet frustrating. From MSDN: "The key is handled in a case-insensitive manner; it is translated to lower case before it is used with the string dictionary."

If you need to be able to display a list of dictionary keys try the Dictionary<string, string> instead of the StringDictionary. Simliar results ... less frustration.

I am a minimizer

2008-08-06T13:07:00.002-05:00

I have developed a bit of a reputation at work. I am a "minimizer." Is that actually my nickname? No. It hasn't gone that far yet. But, I have overhead a fellow developer say, "I'm going to pull a 'Chad' and stick a region around this code."

I like Regions. I like to collapse methods. And, I like to collapse the solution tree. I like to be able to see the big picture first before I start to dig down into the details.

There is a shortcut for adding a region, albeit a difficult-to-use shortcut. And, of course, Ctl-M-O will collapse all of the methods in a file.

But, finding a quick and easy way to collapse all of the directories/files in the solution tree was a bit more difficult until I was pointed to a handy little macro by Scott Kuhl. Thanks, Scott.

Embracing VB.net

2008-08-02T08:38:00.004-05:00

First off, no, I'm not switching from C# to VB.net. In fact, just the opposite, my .net experienced began with VB.net and I promptly switched to C# when it became apparent that there were more job opportunities for C# developers. But, given my past experience with VB.net, I really enjoyed Kathleen Dollard's recent post, What a C# Coder Should Know Before They Write VB.

The most important item may be the first:

1) Get over the respect thing or quit before you start. VB is a great language.

As developers, our own petty preferences and idiosyncrasies can be our most formidable enemy. The .net framework is designed to allow a developer to choose from numerous server-side programming languages. Each language brings with it it's own set of pros and cons. And yet, I have not run across a single dev team that allows developers to choose the language they will use.

Which brings me #44 on Kathleen's list:

44) VB XLINQ is amazing. Learn how to use XML namespaces for Intellisense, manage XML as XML regarding missing values (this took a 40 line piece of C# code to three lines in VB, how to output XML, and how to use it as a generalized text processing tool

VB XLINQ is really amazing. I'm amazed that the C# community hasn't complained more about the lack of similar support in C#. But, back to my original point. A dev team should take advantage of this VB.net goodness. There is no reason that a data access layer should not take advantage of VB XLINQ even if the rest of the app is written in C#. Most web-based teams already make use of a number of programming languages or markup languages (C#, JavaScript, t-sql or pl/sql, HTML, CSS, XML, and possibly some Perl or Python). So, what's one more, right?

Warning: cross country season approaching

2008-07-31T12:28:00.001-05:00

Summer break is waning to a close. In a few weeks,the kids will be back in school and the fall sport teams will begin practicing. At our house, this is a fun time. David, our oldest, is in 7th grade and runs cross country for the Middle School. We have hopes that some of his younger sister and/or his little brother will also run because we are die-hard cross country parents.

We have encouraged him to stick to the training program his coach has given him to prepare for the season. We plan on attending every meet we can make it to and doing our part to cheer him on. We have even purchased a few books this summer so that we can better understand cross country training and race strategy.

In addition, I have a habit of bragging on David's accomplishments. So, this is fair warning. Don't be surprised to see regular updates here. And, normally, the updates will come in the form of online race results when available.

So, without further ado, Tuesday evening David ran in the last run of the Runners Forum Twilight XC Series with some of the cities best High School runners. Look for the 12-year old (he finished 43rd). I couldn't get away from work and make it up to the north side of the city before the race. But, Amanda said that it was really exciting race even though the temperature was in the 90's.

Alternating row shading without using the AlternatingItemTemplate

2008-07-29T18:19:00.001-05:00

Bertrand Le Roy has a very helpful post about adding alternating row shading to a ListView. This same concept can be applied to a Repeater by inserting ItemIndex for DisplayIndex.

For example:

<asp:Repeater ID="Repeater1" runat="server">    <HeaderTemplate>        <table>    HeaderTemplate>    <ItemTemplate>        <tr class='<%# Container.ItemIndex % 2 == 0 ? "" : "shade" %>'>            <td>                <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Name") %>            td>        tr>    ItemTemplate>    <FooterTemplate>        table>    FooterTemplate>asp:Repeater>