I know I said yesterday that I’d start a series about creating DotNetNuke modules, but I solved a problem yesterday after I wrote that post that I think a lot of you will be interested in.  Especially if you are using WordPress in combination with an ASP.NET site.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at WordPress w/ Forms Authentication on IIS6

What if there was a product that would allow you to create your web site themes as easy as you could create a PowerPoint presentation theme?  Wouldn’t that be cool?

This past weekend I discovered just such a product.  At first, I was pretty skeptical.  I mean, I normally pay $50.00 or so per theme when I put up a DotNetNuke site and here is a product that will let me create very nice themes that I can use in BOTH my ASP.NET based sites AND my WordPress based sites for just over 3 times that price.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Web Design Software

I’ve been playing with TypeScript for the last couple of weeks and I’ve fallen in love.  Now I can write JavaScript code without having to switch between thinking about the problem in terms of object oriented programming (csharp) and kind of sort of object oriented programming (javascript).… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Debugging TypeScript Under DotNetNuke

I received the following question a few days ago but I’ve been so busy with billable work that I just haven’t had a chance to answer it until now.  Actually, I’m still busy, but I hate letting these questions go for too long.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Multi-Step Processing in ASP.NET

Do you want to increase your followers?  Or are you as sick as I am of the various products that will help you increase your follower count?

I’ve been on Twitter now for several months and the one thing I’ve noticed is the obsession with having the greatest number of followers.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Twitter Follower Obsessions

I ran into an interesting “problem” last week that wasn’t all that hard to figure out once I broke out the debugger.  But I thought it would be useful to share the results to save others the time.

The situation was that I had an Object Data Source in a FormView that I wanted to share with both a DataGrid in the FormView and a DataRepeater outside of the FormView.  Since it was in the FormView, the DataRepeater couldn’t see it.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Sharing ObjectDataSource From Codebehind

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, learning Silverlight is a lot more about relearning some basic assumptions than it is about learning a new language.  We’ve already looked at the basic layout managers available and how that impacts putting a screen together.  Today we want to look at how we can capture events and access the controls from our CSharp code.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Silverlight – Wire up your form for programming

Now that we have something running, it’s time to take a look at the various parts of the DotNetNuke framework.  But before we do, we need the all-important question, “Why do we care?”

From an end user’s perspective, DotNetNuke is a content management system.  What the end user ends up seeing is an environment that allows him to add content easily.  A user interface that is consistent.  Functionality that works the same across multiple pages.While all of this can be achieved when building our own web applications, we all know that there are times where duplicate code creeps in for whatever reason and consistency is lost.  This becomes more true the larger the project is.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke Modules – Benefits of Architecture

I am about to embark on the “religious” topic of naming conventions.  I was reminded of this topic by the short post, “Hungarian Notation, what do I think”, by Richard Dingwall.

I’m sure there will be those of you who will disagree with me, but as I’ve stated in previous posts, these general guidelines I’ve been using for .NET programming have served me well since .NET 1.0; they are meant as strong suggestions for those who are looking for guidance, not rules I expect the industry to adopt because I know better than anyone else.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Hungarian Notation – Use What Works, Spit Out The Bones

Many CSharp programmers are surprised to find that CSharp has an AS keyword that looks remarkably similar to VB.NET’s AS keyword.  And while on the surface it looks similar to what AS does in VB.NET, it is quite a bit different.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at AS is in CSharp too.

Yesterday, I was working on an application that passes encrypted data as a URLEncoded parameter on to another page.

The problem we were having with this code was that the code would occasionally give us the error, “Invalid Length for a Base-64 char array” when the code was converting the parameter back to a byte array so that it could decrypt it.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Base-64 as URL Parameter

Today I’m going to start a separate series on Skinning DotNetNuke. Don’t worry, I’m still planning to continue the series on creating modules. Later on, I may start a series on something else. But I have a need to explain skinning for a client, so you all get to benefit from the effort.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke – Skinning

Are you confused about how to implement sorting in the new ListView control in ASP.NET 3.5?  Join me as I show you in this step by step video showing you exactly how to sort a ListView, even when it isn’t in gridview mode.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Sorting the ListView in ASP.NET

Not because it is all that new, but because it took me a while to find it, here’s how to create a self executing anonymous function using CSharp, just like you can do in JavaScript.

((Func<int>)(delegate()
{
   return 0;
}))();

Func<int> says the the delegate will return an integer.  If you need to pass a parameter you can use the alternate form of Func<parameterType,returnType>

delegate() {return 0;} is just basic delegate syntax that I’ve discussed in the past.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Self Executing Anonymous Function

Anyone familiar with CSS knows that class selectors are generally reserved for controlling how an element looks (font, color, size, etc) and id selectors are generally reserved for where the element is positioned on the screen.  The reason for this is that id selectors correspond to the id attribute of the elements on the screen and if you are using well formed html, you can only have one element on the page with any specific ID.  That is, IDs are unique.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Why CSS ID selectors are Evil in ASP.NET Web Forms

Yesterday I was setting up DotNetNuke for a designer on a computer at a corporate location so that he could start working on CSS for some of our custom modules.  He had an earlier version of DNN installed, so you’d think that it would “just work” but there seems to be a new module or something going on that caused the AspnetHostingPermission exception to get thrown so that we couldn’t even run the web site.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke SecurityException AspnetHostingPermission

One of the comments that showed up on the blog post about using 3-tiered with DataSets and the ObjectDataSource was, “How do we set this up so that we can swap out the DAL?”  The simple answer to this is, “roll your own Table Adapter.”

Today’s video is the first installment of how you might do that.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Swapping Out the DAL

By now, you’ve gotten the idea that creating a set of skins and containers for DotNetNuke is a little bit more work than just creating some HTML, images, and a CSS file. Hopefully, you also realize that it isn’t really that much more work than what you are used to, just a few more tags, really.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke Skinning – Standard CSS Classes

In previous posts, I’ve covered the core architecture of jQuery.  How it works.  How you call methods.  A brief overview of what’s available.

From here on out, we will focus more on specific solutions that jQuery can provide.  One of those is the ability to load partial content from the server and display it back in a section of our web page.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery – Loading Partial Content

In the last few weeks we’ve looked at several keywords from the CSharp language that allow us to deal with memory management directly.  Stackalloc is another keyword from that list.

Before we look at this keyword, we need to review how .NET deals with memory allocation.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Stackalloc in CSharp

This question came in last Friday:

I’m trying to code a windows form in vb.net 2005. In my form I have 2 TabControls and a command button. The button is in the first TabControl, so what I want to do, is that when I click the button, in the first TabControl, the second TabControl gets opened.

… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at WinForms – Change The Active Tab

One feature you’ll see in DotNetNuke containers is the ability to collapse the container using an icon, typically in the upper right hand corner of the container. Implementing collapsible containers in DotNetNuke is relatively simple.

The control that causes a panel to expand or collapse is the Visibility control.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke Skinning – Collapsible Containers

Yesterday I mentioned a new tool called Cufon that allows you to easily embed fonts in your web site.

One quirk about this tool is that your HTML has to be rendered prior to applying, or refreshing, the font. If you are using any kind of AJAXy stuff in your site, you’ll need to re-apply the font change.  The trick is knowing when to do this.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at JQuery, Cufon, and Dynamic Content

Or, at least, it didn’t. Here’s what happened:

Yesterday a client asked me to help track down a problem he was having with setting the default button for a text box.

As you should already know, you can make ASP.NET automatically click a specific button on the page (Button, ImageButton, or LinkButton) by grouping everything in a Panel and setting the DefaultButton property to the ID of the button you want to have automatically clicked.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Panel DefaultButton does not work

First, a little history lesson.

When .NET was first released, we had value types and object types.  The difference between the two is that you do not have to set aside memory for a value type because the memory is placed on the stack.  So ints, doubles, and structures are all value types.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Making values nullable

From a very early age we have been conditioned to fail.

I know that probably seems harsh, and probably seems like an over generalization, but it is true.

Here are some things you can start doing today to start succeeding.  Even if you consider yourself successful, these tips will send you to the next level.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at How to Excel as a Programmer (or anything else)

While reviewing my RSS feed this morning, I found this article:

3 reasons why you should let Google host jQuery for you | Encosia

I had no idea!

The three reasons are:

1. Decreased Latency
   Google will serve the data from the closest server
2. Increased Parallelism
   More threads are available to download content specific to your application instead of downloading this common library.
… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Host jQuery at Google (with Intellisense support)

Have you ever had a situation arise where you want to create a function that returns a collection of results and you want the results to be listed in a for each loop? 

Sure you have.  And I bet I know what your code looked like too:

public ArrayList CollectionFunction()
{
    ArrayList ar = new ArrayList();
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    {
        ar.Add(i * (i + 1));
    }
    return ar;
}

public void CollectionEach()
{
    foreach (object o in CollectionFunction())
        Console.Write(o.ToString());
}

But did you know there is a much easier way to write this code and, as it turns out, it’s much more efficient too.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Advanced CSharp – yield

Last week I introduced the jQuery Dialog plugin, which allows us to put various dialogs on the screen.

I only gave out the basics of this flexible widget to keep things simple.  Today, I want to expand on that a bit by showing off some of the other capabilities.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery – Modal Dialog

So, I ran into a problem a couple of days ago that took two days to figure out.  Since my search in Google turned up nothing, I’m posting it here just in case someone else does the same stupid thing.

A couple of days ago, a client of mine called and said he’d been working on his DotNetNuke site moving things around when suddenly he was unable to see his module content any more.  Since I’m his DNN guru, he asked me to look into it.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke – Missing Content in Modules

I got a question yesterday from a designer who is unfamiliar with ASP.NET asking what the difference is between ASCX mode and HTML mode when developing skins and containers for DotNetNuke.

I thought it might be useful to the community if I answered this for everyone.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke Skins – ASCX vs HTML mode

One of the big new features that have been advertised with Visual Studio 2008 is this thing called Multi-Targeting.  This lets you write code for .NET 2.0 (or 3.0) even though 2008 is written to work with .NET 3.5.  So, the theory is, you can still work on existing projects targeted for .NET 2.0.  Does this work?  Watch the video to find out.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Multi-Targeting

Several weeks ago I mentioned that I store the images that the user uploads to the system into the database.

Some of you have expressed an interest in how I do that.  So I plan to cover that today.

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume that you’ve already got the image uploaded and scaled and that all that is left is getting it into the database.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Storing An Image To a Database in .NET

Last week I left you with a chunk of code that showed you that you had successfully installed jQuery into your web application.

The code we need to discuss looks like this:

$(document).ready(function() {
    alert("jquery is working");
});

The first piece of code we need to examine is the document selector:

$(document)

The $(…) syntax is called a selector.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery – Explaining Last Week’s Code

I hear this statement a lot, or one like it, from various walks of life.  For example, I hear it from clients.  I hear it from people who want a new car.  But I’d like to address this from a strictly programming perspective here.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at “I don’t exactly have random $$$ hanging about.”

While the TabControl provided by Microsoft in the AJAX toolkit is probably a bit easier to use, the Tabs in jQuery are not much harder to implement and give us a bit more flexibility.

Here are the steps to implement:

First, make sure the HTML (ASPX) page you are creating is pointing at the stylesheet that contains the jQuery UI theme you are using.  The tabs make use of the themes and will not render as tabs unless the styles are pulled in.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery Tabs

I received the following question recently about my article “ASP.NET AJAX using JSON – Here’s how.”

If we update the value of a textbox or label via a JSON web service call – will the value of that textbox/label be written to the viewstate or whatever so that the server side code can see the new values that came from the JSON request?

… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET JSON and ViewState

When you need to deal with a number that is a fraction, what do you specify for its type?  If you are like most programmers I know, you’ll reach for Float (Single if you are using VB) or Double.

If you are working with currency, though, this could get you into a lot of trouble.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Decimal vs Float (Single) or Double

Just came across this link via dZone.

http://css-tricks.com/override-inline-styles-with-css/

<div style="background: red;">
    The inline styles for this div should make it red.
</div>

We can fight that with this:

div[style] {
   background: yellow !important;
}

It doesn’t work in IE6, if you care.  But the places where I’ve needed this trick, I don’t care.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Override Inline CSS – I had no idea!

When I started this series on SEO, I mentioned that one of the main factors that will influence the ranking of your pages in the search engines is the number of links that are coming in and where they are coming from.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Programming SEO – RSS

[Don't start the flames until you read the entire post . ]

While we could go on with the various syntax elements in a SELECT statement, I doubt that it would be as helpful as the items we’ve already covered.  Most of what I use on a day to day basis is some combination of what I’ve shown already.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at SQL For Programmers – Stored Procedures (Better than LINQ)

It seems like such a trivial thing to be talking about but not knowing the difference between the two operators can make a huge difference between working code and code that only seems to work.

Let me illustrate:

        bool b = false;
        bool c = true;
        if(b & c)
            // do something

        if(b && c)
            // do something

In the code above, both b & c and b && c evaluate to false, so  we are safe.  No problems.  But this leads us to believe that the following code is also safe:

        string s = null;
        if(s != null & s.Length > 0)
            // do something

        if(s != null && s.Length > 0)
            // do something

and this is what would get you in trouble.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at && vs & and | vs ||… What’s the difference?

Several months ago, I mentioned that I found a product that will allow you to create as many themes as you want for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, ASP.NET, or regular HTML.

I also mentioned that it did not do DotNetNuke.

Well, now it does.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Infinite DotNetNuke Skin Sets For One Low Price

I got a question last week from a gentleman asking how to tell what parameters were available for a particular method.  This is useful when you know that a method will be available on a class you are calling, but the method could have any parameters, or when you have used reflection to get the list of methods in your class, and need to pull out the parameter list for each.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Reflecting Parameters

The problem:

Currently DNN only lets us stage content using the Text/HTML module and only if you have the pro or enterprise version of DotNetNuke. There are three issues with this:

1. We can only stage HTML content. Other modules need to resort to some other method.
… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke: Staging Content Using Roles

While jQuery has a lot of functionality built into it, you may find that you have a need to implement your own functions and attach them to the jQuery framework in some way.

There are two ways to do this. You could extend the framework by creating a plug-in or you could use one of the built-in functions and simply tell it to call your function.  For one-off implementations, using the function is easier and recommended.  But if you are going to reuse the code between multiple projects you’ll want to implement the added functionality as a plug-in.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery – Calling Your Own Functions

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Protected: Deck Pictures

There are a lot of nice shortcuts in the CSharp language that most of us never use.  But if you take the time to learn them, you can be as productive as a student I had who had learned all the keyboard shortcuts to windows so that he never had to take his hands off the keyboard.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at CSharp’s Property Shortcuts

One of the great new features in ASP.NET 2.0 has been the ability to use master pages to layout the common elements of the web site.  This certainly works better than top and bottom include files or top and bottom Web User Controls.  But at least with the user controls, if we wanted to access a control within it, the method to do so was pretty straight forward.  All you had to do was expose the control as a public property.  Or, better, create a pass through property on the control that sets or retrieves the inner control’s property.  By doing this, you could turn a side bar element on or off (as an example.)

While you can expose elements of a master page in a similar manner, anyone who’s done this knows there are a few gotchas along the way.  I’m going to tell you how to avoid the gotchas and you’ll have the added benefit of being able to access the controls on the master page even if you decide to use a different master page without having to change any code other than the master page directive at the top of the aspx page.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at How to properly access controls in the Master Page

A couple of weeks ago I started a series on ASP.NET Internationalization where we started by covering the basics, that is, using RESX files to supply language-specific strings in our code.

However, as anyone who’s tried to tackle the the internationalization problem knows, strings aren’t the only items that are impacted by internationalization.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Internationalization – Themes

Same client as yesterday, but new problem.

Today, they finally got the new parts they needed to get their SQL server back up and running.  Which was the main problem that caused yesterday’s question.  Only, the web server(s) could not connect to the SQL server.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Tracking down SQL Server Connection Issue

Today, we will install DotNetNuke into Visual Studio so that we can create our first module. So fire up Visual Studio, and let’s get going.

I’ll be using Visual Studio 2008 to walk you through this, but the instructions are very similar if you are still using Visual Studio 2005.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke Modules – Install DNN into VS 2008

So many of the skin and container sets I buy are written in such a way that if I were to mix and match my containers, graphic disaster would strike my page.

Fortunately, the problem is rather easily fixed. But if more designers thought about this potential problem and applied the simple fix to avoid it, it would save us all time and make the skin all that much more valuable.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke – Avoiding Container Collision

Last week we looked at how to have jQuery execute our own functions. I suggested at the time that if you were going to need to use that function in multiple applications, you might want to consider turning it into a plug-in.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery – Creating Plug-ins

Last week, we finished up our main series on reflection.  For most people, what we covered is all they will ever need.  However, there are a few other things I’ve needed to know due mainly to the fact that I was using reflection from a DLL instead of an EXE

When I wrote VSS.NET, which was my first .NET application, allow Visual SourceSafe to be used over the Internet, I wanted to implement the SCC api.  This is the API that allows you to use VSS from the IDE.  For some reason that I can’t remember now and isn’t important to this discussion, I needed to use reflection from the DLL that the SCC interface was calling.  This posed two problems.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Reflection From a DLL and Serialization

If you’ve done any work with Azure Blob storage, you already know that Blob storage is case sensitive.  If you’ve hooked the Azure CDN to blob storage, it is also case sensitive.

You are probably reading this article because you’ve already run into this problem.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Azure CDN Blob Storage Case Sensitive Issue

Nice start on a WYSIWYG browser based editor. 

It’s released under the MS-PL license.  You can get the full information at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/kirti/archive/2007/11/10/rich-text-editor-is-here.aspx

Brad Abrams : Cool Free ASP.NET AJAX Rich Text Editor

Technorati Tags: html editor,ajax,wysiwyg

del.icio.us Tags: html editor,ajax,wysiwyg

Republished by Blog Post Promoter… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Cool Free ASP.NET AJAX Rich Text Editor

OK.  This one is just plain annoying!

For some reason that I’ve yet to be able to track down, Response.End() seems to have no impact at all under DotNetNuke.

I tried various hacks.  Including the one you’ve probably seen already about executing Response.End() twice.  No good.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke Response.End() Doesn’t End

The main project I’m working on these days is moving several web sites to Azure.  It is something I’ve wanted to be able to try for a while.  I’m working with several other agencies on this project and some Microsoft consultants so there is some good guidance along the way.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DataSets, TableAdapters, and Transient Retry Logic For SqlAzure

Yeah, I know.  It has been a LONG  time since I posted anything.  I’ve been busy.

One of my recent projects brought up something I think you may be interested in so I thought I’d post about it.

Recently, I created a Facebook tab for Labels For Education using DotNetNuke 6.1, which just added an API for retrieving information from Facebook.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Facebook App using DotNetNuke

Most ASP.NET programmers are aware that the environment allows programmers to write code in multiple languages.  This is what allows a programmer who prefers CSharp to write modules for DotNetNuke in CSharp even though the core code is written in VB.NET.  (Until version 6.0, anyhow, where the core will finally be written in CSharp.)

What many don’t realize is that you can’t have CSharp code reference VB.NET and also have VB.NET code reference the CSharp code within the same application.  At least, you can’t do it directly.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Cross Language References in ASP.NET

Last week, I had a client ask me how to implement sharing from an email. On the face of it, sharing isn’t that hard for any specific service.  Facebook has their way.  Twitter has its way.  But we’ve been using the AddThis.com service.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could provide a way to implement sharing from within an email for any service AddThis.com provided?  And what if you could also add the “Share” button so that even if you didn’t put the service in the email that they wanted to use, they still were able to share using the share button?… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at AddThis.com From E-Mail

Every once in a while, something happens in life that makes you say, “enough!”

That happened a couple of weeks ago to me and a couple other programmers working on the same project that I’m working on.

The issue was that we had made some significant changes to a project, we had communicated to the project manager that the changes required that the entire project needed to be retested, but the testing never happened.  So of course we spent the next several days doing the “testing” and fixing.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at The Programmers’ Revolt

I got the following question yesterday:

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Using COM Objects from ASP.NET

I wrote the following article a long time ago on my main domain, but recently I had a reader send in a question that this article addresses.  So I’m putting this article here so that it is easier for readers to find in the future….… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Which Language VB or CSharp?

I have over 100 websites now and the danger exists that one of them might get hacked.

This wouldn’t be a big problem if I knew about it.  I have backups in place.

But how do you keep track of 100 web sites so that you know if one or more have been hacked so you can do something about it?… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Free Website Monitor

Over the weekend I got a question about how to prevent postbacks on buttons from within jQuery tabs.  But the question really isn’t specific to jQuery.  There are other times when you might not want a button to post back.  So how do you do this?… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Prevent Postback on Buttons

This video will discuss the differences and advantages of using a distributed version control system, like Git, compared to a server based version control system, like SubVersion or SourceSafe.

This video was originally produced for my clients who tend to be small organizations, but the video discusses large project implementations as well.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Distributed VS Server Based Version Control Systems

I’ve been working with a client to implement the Google Appliance on one of their sites that has forms authentication enabled.

For those of you who aren’t aware, Google provides a box that you can install to index your own site using essentially the same logic that Google uses to index the Internet.  The advantage is that you have a lot more control over what gets indexed and when it gets indexed than if you just use what Google provides from its public index of the Internet.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at The Google Appliance and Forms Authentication

I recently had the need to implement transaction tracking between two separate databases on two separate servers.

Unfortunately, I could not be sure that DTC was implemented on either server, so using transaction tracking with the TransactionScope wasn’t an option.

I also wanted to be able to wire this in easily to the existing 3-tiered framework we are currently using so that what I ended up with could easily be implemented by other developers in a similar situation.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Transaction Tracking Typed Datasets Using SqlTransaction

This morning, my email had the following question:

“I am having a problem with datalist. Is it possible to do paging on datalist? If yes, what is the solution? I am using VB.NET on Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Any recommend extension or solution?”

While I’m pretty sure I’ve addressed this in a previous article, I couldn’t find it doing a quick search, so I’ll review this issue again this morning.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Paging on a Datalist

Yesterday I was talking with a friend of mine about a project we have been working on that was written by some other company.  We were speculating why the code was written as it is when we started discussing design theory.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Principles of Programming Architecture

Has this happened to you?

You make a change to a codebehind file or a web.config file and you rerun the application to see the effect and there is no change from the previous time  you looked at the file?

I see this over and over again.  But not on my own code.  Typically it is because someone has asked me how to fix something.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Why ASP.NET Changes Don’t Change Anything

Several weeks ago I was approached by Packt Publishing to review the latest DotNetNuke book, Building Websites with DotNetNuke 5 by Michael Washington and Ian Lackey, which I agreed to do.

What I intend to do in this review is to give you an idea of what is inside this book, compare what I read to what the outside cover of the book says you will get, and finally end with a few comments of my own that are completely opinion based.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Building Websites with DotNetNuke 5 (a review)

Last week I showed you how to install GitExtensions to access Gitosis and promised that I’d show you how to get this all working when Gitosis is running SSH on an alternate port.

There are several reasons why you might want to run SSH on an alternate port.  In my case it is because my ISP blocks incoming traffic on the lower ports and I want to be able to access my computers using SSH’s tunneling feature when I’m on the road.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at GitExtension, Putty, Alternate Port

I was recently sold on the idea of replacing SubVersion as my version control of choice and moving to GIT, or at least installing GIT and seeing for myself if it is that much better than SubVersion.  The first step was to install GIT on my computers so that I could play with it.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Git, Gitosis, Putty and Windows

I received the following question a few days ago:

“I am trying to use three tables from the same dataset in one form that I am creating in vs.net winforms my problem I guess is the setup of it as I can get them all on the form but cant get them to all post to the separate tables when I click save I am using a mysql database with the Mysql connector not the obdc can this even be done?”

Frustrating, isn’t it?  .NET makes some things SO easy, and then when it isn’t you figure you must have done something wrong.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at One Form with Multiple Tables

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror writes:

“I find it difficult to believe, but the reports keep pouring in via Twitter and email: many candidates who show up for programming job interviews can’t program. At all.”

Jeff, you must not have visited a college campus recently.  The reason most that most “programmers” can’t program is because their instructors led them to believe they could program.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Why Programmers Can’t Program

I thought about calling this  Session Object Madness, but it really isn’t that crazy once you think through what’s happening.

Here’s the issue.  I have a client who does work for another client who is hosting their sites at IBM.

I’m told that IBM will not enable any session servers so none of the sites can include session objects.  And that’s where the fun begins.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at When Session Objects Get Created With No Session Variables

Got this question this morning from the “Ask A Question” form.

“How do I make a change in an existing DotNetNuke module?  I want to add new fields to the feedback form.”

I’m assuming the question is about making changes to the module without touching the source code.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Changing an Existing DNN Module

I’ve stumbled across this problem twice in the last couple of months so I figure it is about time I blogged about it.

The situation is that you have  a page on your web site that sets a session variable and then redirects to another page that is expecting the variable to be there, only it isn’t there.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Session Variables Not Sticking

This one has been bothering me for several weeks, so I decided to research the problem and finally fix it.

The problem started when I downloaded a project from the web to start working on it.  This same project worked previously, the zip was just an update.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at The Project Location is not Trusted

I’ve been busy over the last couple of weeks working on an administrative application that uses a ton of AJAXy stuff.

The application is interactive in the sense that every time a field is updated in the administrative screen, another part of the screen updates to show the user what the final result will look like when it is published.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery and ASP.NET UpdatePanel

While not exactly a web design book, this book is required reading for anyone involved in designing the GUI for a web site.

Colors have meaning and the better you understand this, the more optimal your site design can become for the users you intend to visit your site.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at The Art of Color

My friend Bill posted a link to “A Day In The Internet” that started a discussion about the signal to noise ratio on the Internet.

I commented briefly, but realized that my comment was turning into more of a post of its own.  So here’s a more complete comment on Bill’s post.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Filtering the Internet Noise

One of the things to keep in mind when using jQuery is that nothing is a blocking call.  Sure, there is a certain sequence to when things operate.  But, to be safe, you should always assume that step two will happen during step one.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at jQuery, Each() and Async Gets

I have long argued that 99% if the things people think they need to use Adobe’s Flash for could be done just as well using JavaScript.

Now that jQuery is available, I am even more convinced that this is the case.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Flash to jQuery

I got this interesting question the other day.

“I am interested in pursuing a career in Computer Programming and have a question. Which would be better: to get my degree through an online college, or to teach myself. If self teaching is better how and where should I start?… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Learn To Program – Online College or Self Taught?

Google recently introduced the SPDY initiative where they are working toward making the web twice as fast.

If you have a public facing web site that is commercial in nature, speed has always been a factor that will drive sales, sign-ups, etc.  But we very rarely pay any attention to this, even though the solutions are relatively simple.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Google SPDY Tweaks

One of the controls that was added to ASP.NET 3.5 in the SP1 release was the Dynamic Validator control.

I completely missed it.

What it does is pretty cool.  But it doesn’t really do what you’d think it might.  Or at least not what I thought it would.  “Dynamic” implies to me some kind of hook up to the database.  But the Dynamic Validator control doesn’t hook to the database.  At least not directly.  What it does, however, is a lot more flexible.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Dynamic Validator

The Model-View-Controller pattern—universally known as MVC—provides a stable, testable approach to web application development by separating the major functions—or concerns—of an application into independently defined roles.

ASP.NET MVC in Action is a comprehensive guide to MVC-based development using this powerful framework.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET MVC in Action

I’m not the first to write on this topic and probably won’t be the last.  But I do have something to say on the matter that I think is helpful.

In fact, there has been quite a bit written about interviewing for ASP.NET, but relatively little written about how to interview, and what to look for, in a student who just recently graduated from college.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Interview Questions For New College Graduates

Not to be confused with cross page posting, cross domain submission allows us to post the contents of an ASP.NET form to a completely different domain.

To achieve this we will need to use a bit of javascript and you’ll need to resort to using regular HTML controls.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Cross Domain Form Submission

I got this question a couple of weeks ago but just never had the time to put into answering fully.  But today I have some extra time due to the fact that I’m under-booked with projects.

The question went something like this:

“I want to be able to upload a file from a desktop application to a web site that has a form that accepts the file as a post.  How do I do that?”

And while I’ve done some things in the past that come close, I’ve never had to do this exact task.  But it does look interesting.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Upload a File via WebRequest Using CSharp

In our series about ASP.NET authentication so far we’ve covered all the rather normal cases where you’d want to have the ability to log into different domains attached to the same application.  There are a few additional hurdles you’ll need to overcome to make this work correctly.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at ASP.NET Authentication – Multiple Domains w/ Same Application

Several of the projects I’m involved with use the Google Search Appliance for their search engine.  For each of these projects, we’ve wanted to integrate the results on an ASPX page so that the results look like they are part of the site rather than taking them to another site to display the results.  This is achieved by using the XML Control, the Google XSLT file, and some good old-fashioned search and replace.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Embedding Google Search Appliance Results in ASP.NET

A couple of days ago I mentioned a project that I’ve been working on that is a bit out of the ordinary as far as GridViews go.  One of the issues I’ve had is that the edit template doesn’t map to the view template very well.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at GridView and Updating A Row Manually

I recently changed my theme to one that has a dark background with light content areas and discovered that Windows Live Writer, the blog editor I use to compose my blogs, doesn’t pick up the style for the content area when it decides what to display in the editor window.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Where Does Live Writer Store Themes

Databound controls are at once very easy and very frustrating.  If you just need to do some simple databinding that gets a list of items on the screen and you need the ability to edit those items, you are all set.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at Access a control by ID From Within a Databound Control

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the move to DotNetNuke 5 has brought about a few changes.  Some of them are design decisions that are just frustrating, like not being able to see that a module is viewable by the administrators only.  Others are bugs, like not being able to press the ENTER key while searching for a user, like we discussed a couple of days ago.… Read the rest

This post was originally found at .NET Answers the original article can be found at DotNetNuke 5.x Can’t Move Module On A Page