.NET Answers

Transaction Tracking Typed Datasets Using SqlTransaction

Dave — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:38:46 +0000

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 [...]

Transaction Tracking Typed Datasets Using SqlTransaction is a post from: .NET Answers

jQuery Cookbook

Dave — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:03:21 +0000

jQuery simplifies building rich, interactive web frontends. Getting started with this JavaScript library is easy, but it can take years to fully realize its breadth and depth; this cookbook shortens the learning curve considerably. With these recipes, you’ll learn patterns and practices from 19 leading developers who use jQuery for everything from integrating simple components [...]

jQuery Cookbook is a post from: .NET Answers

Paging on a Datalist

Dave — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:28:11 +0000

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 [...]

Paging on a Datalist is a post from: .NET Answers

Principles of Programming Architecture

Dave — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:56:34 +0000

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. The issue we have is that even though much of the code we are [...]

Principles of Programming Architecture is a post from: .NET Answers

Do You Wear a Watch? (results)

Dave — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 10:57:00 +0000

A few days ago I asked the question on Twitter and Facebook. I got some pretty interesting comments along the way. I asked the question because I recently “won” a watch at a chamber of commerce event I was at. It is a ladies watch. I can’t find any women who want it because none [...]

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Why ASP.NET Changes Don’t Change Anything

Dave — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:02:00 +0000

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 [...]

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Building Websites with DotNetNuke 5 (a review)

Dave — Mon, 31 May 2010 21:49:00 +0000

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 [...]

Building Websites with DotNetNuke 5 (a review) is a post from: .NET Answers

GitExtension, Putty, Alternate Port

Dave — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:01:00 +0000

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 [...]

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Git, Gitosis, Putty and Windows

Dave — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:32:08 +0000

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. Installing [...]

Git, Gitosis, Putty and Windows is a post from: .NET Answers

Multi-Step Processing in ASP.NET

Dave — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:45:00 +0000

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. “Right now I am working on a project where I have to [...]

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One Form with Multiple Tables

Dave — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:13:42 +0000

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?”... here is the answer.

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Why Programmers Can’t Program

Dave — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:53:24 +0000

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 [...]

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When Session Objects Get Created With No Session Variables

Dave — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:38:03 +0000

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 [...]

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Changing an Existing DNN Module

Dave — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:04:04 +0000

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. But, unfortunately, you can’t do that. If [...]

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Sharing ObjectDataSource From Codebehind

Dave — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:30:00 +0000

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 [...]

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ASP.NET Session Variables Not Sticking

Dave — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:57:16 +0000

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 [...]

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Top Ten ASP.NET Books

Dave — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:50:34 +0000

1) Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework The ASP.NET MVC Framework is the latest evolution of Microsoft’s ASP.NET web platform. It introduces a radically new high–productivity programming model that promotes cleaner code architecture, test–driven development, and powerful extensibility, combined with all the benefits of ASP.NET 3.5. An integral benefit of this book is that the core Model–View–Controller [...]

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Forming CT SEM Think Tank

Dave — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:08:53 +0000

Do you live in Connecticut? Do you know something about Search Engine Marketing? Do you feel like you are the only one in Connecticut doing Search Engine marketing? Have you had limited success but you’d like to achieve more? I have an idea I think you’re going to like. I am looking for other like-minded [...]

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jQuery 1.4 Released

Dave — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:01:54 +0000

Just in case you missed it, jQuery 1.4 was released with significant speed improvements, bug fixes and of course some API changes that you need to be aware of. One of the more interesting changes that I’ll note here is the decreased use of polling within the framework. I’ve used polling myself to detect when [...]

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The Project Location is not Trusted

Dave — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:29:54 +0000

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. Here’s what I found: You may have already [...]

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jQuery and ASP.NET UpdatePanel

Dave — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:30:00 +0000

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 [...]

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The Art of Color

Dave — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:03:58 +0000

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. In this book, the world’s foremost [...]

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Filtering the Internet Noise

Dave — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:41:55 +0000

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. As I said [...]

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jQuery, Each() and Async Gets

Dave — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:50:54 +0000

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. Nowhere is this more evident than when retrieving content from a [...]

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JQuery, Cufon, and Dynamic Content

Dave — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:02:06 +0000

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 [...]

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Flash to jQuery

Dave — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:38:00 +0000

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. There are, however, a few hurdles that need to be jumped to make this [...]

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Acer Aspire AS5532-5535

Dave — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:52:24 +0000

I just picked one of these up last Monday. It’s pretty nice. It is actually a bit of overkill for what I need but I was looking for the least expensive computer that would run a 64bit OS and run Exchange 2007. This meant it had to have at least 2Gig of memory. This has [...]

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Learn To Program – Online College or Self Taught?

Dave — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:20:19 +0000

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? Any help would be greatly appreciated.” [...]

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Do you Need My Help?

Dave — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:46:00 +0000

I admit it, for the first time in years, I find myself under committed. That is, I have less work than I have time. So if you need someone who provides one of the several programming and web-related services below, I may be able to help you. What you may not realize is how many [...]

Do you Need My Help? is a post from: .NET Answers

ASP.NET Google SPDY Tweaks

Dave — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:33:44 +0000

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 [...]

ASP.NET Google SPDY Tweaks is a post from: .NET Answers

ASP.NET Dynamic Validator

Dave — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:23:55 +0000

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 [...]

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ASP.NET MVC in Action

Dave — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:39:22 +0000

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. It offers a clearly-written introduction both to the ASP.NET MVC Framework and to the [...]

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ASP.NET Interview Questions For New College Graduates

Dave — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:44:08 +0000

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 [...]

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ASP.NET Cross Domain Form Submission

Dave — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:47:36 +0000

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. We will cover two cases. The first [...]

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Upload a File via WebRequest Using CSharp

Dave — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:15:52 +0000

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 [...]

Upload a File via WebRequest Using CSharp is a post from: .NET Answers

ASP.NET Authentication – Multiple Domains w/ Same Application

Dave — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:58:24 +0000

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. The first is, how do I let each [...]

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The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

Dave — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:41:48 +0000

“Programmers are craftspeople trained to use a certain set of tools (editors, object managers, version trackers) to generate a certain kind of product (programs) that will operate in some environment (operating systems on hardware assemblies). Like any other craft, computer programming has spawned a body of wisdom, most of which isn’t taught at universities or [...]

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master is a post from: .NET Answers

Embedding Google Search Appliance Results in ASP.NET

Dave — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:13:35 +0000

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 [...]

Embedding Google Search Appliance Results in ASP.NET is a post from: .NET Answers

GridView and Updating A Row Manually

Dave — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:36:08 +0000

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. OK, it doesn’t map at all. You see, the [...]

GridView and Updating A Row Manually is a post from: .NET Answers

Where Does Live Writer Store Themes

Dave — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:06:00 +0000

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. Surely, this can’t be that [...]

Where Does Live Writer Store Themes is a post from: .NET Answers

Access a control by ID From Within a Databound Control

Dave — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:21:07 +0000

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. But once you need to do anything that deviates from that simple pattern, you [...]

Access a control by ID From Within a Databound Control is a post from: .NET Answers

Essential Silverlight 3

Dave — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:46:34 +0000

Essential Silverlight 3 is the definitive reference and insider’s guide. It not only covers all the key features of the Silverlight 3 runtime and how to use them but, in Under the Hood sections, explains why each feature was developed and how each one works. These “insider” explanations often lead to concise, practical performance tips [...]

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DotNetNuke 5.x Can’t Move Module On A Page

Dave — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:44:49 +0000

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 [...]

DotNetNuke 5.x Can’t Move Module On A Page is a post from: .NET Answers

Agile/Scrum Task Board for “Real Life”

Dave — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:34:25 +0000

The agile “Task Board,” also known as a “Scrum Board” has become a staple of the agile programming world. “Getting Things Done” (GTD) is a process for managing task in the business world. I mostly like what GTD does, but the classic implementation doesn’t fit how I work. But what if we could adapt the [...]

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DotNetNuke 5.14 Search User Enter Key Issue

Dave — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:34:28 +0000

I recently upgraded a DotNetNuke installation and found several issues that are either different from the 4.x series or are now broken. Most annoying is that there is now no longer any visual indication that a module is viewable by the administrator only. Seems there should at least be a CSS class added to the [...]

DotNetNuke 5.14 Search User Enter Key Issue is a post from: .NET Answers

Authentication – Assigning Permissions to Roles

Dave — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:24:52 +0000

Now that we’ve assigned roles to our users, we need to assign permissions to the roles. The easiest way to do this is through the web.config file, which will allow us to control which pages the roles can access. But how do we control items beyond pages? For that we’ll need to do a bit [...]

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Ergonomic Office Chair

Dave — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:02:18 +0000

What?! A chair on a programming blog? Hey, we all need one, and if you don’t have a good chair, your programming WILL suffer! High Back Ergonomic Office Chair Extremely Well Padded Seat and Back Grey and Black Mesh Upholstery Height Adjustable Back Height Adjustable Arms Polyurethane Padded Arm Rests Multi-Function 3-Paddle Control Mechanism Pneumatic [...]

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ASP.NET Substitution Control

Dave — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:45:00 +0000

Tucked away on the toolbar is a little-used and often overlooked control. Not using this control could be costing you in performance. The control I’m referring to is the Substitution control. The only time you’d use it would be if you had implemented page caching. You are using page caching, right? What? You aren’t because [...]

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DotNetNuke – Collecting Profile at Registration

Dave — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:30:00 +0000

Yesterday I was asked a question that I thought was one thing and ended up being another. But the question I thought it was is one worth answering here because it takes so darn long to find the answer. How do you get DotNetNuke to collect user profile information while a user is self-registering for [...]

DotNetNuke – Collecting Profile at Registration is a post from: .NET Answers

SQL SELECT CASE Instead of IIF

Dave — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:25:00 +0000

I’ve had to do this a couple of times and I just realized I haven’t written about it anywhere. If you need to SELECT a field from a row that returns different content based on the content of the field, you’d think, based on previous programming experience, that your code would look something like this. [...]

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ASP.NET Assigning a Role to a User

Dave — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:00:34 +0000

Another function that is not supplied by one of the existing controls in ASP.NET is the ability to assign a user to a role. For this, we will need to resort to using the APIs. Since we can assign roles to users using the ASP.NET configuration tool, we can assume there is an API available [...]

ASP.NET Assigning a Role to a User is a post from: .NET Answers

Logitech Webcam Pro 9000

Dave — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:35:17 +0000

Video calls have always offered the promise of connection to your distant friends and family. But for many of us, getting the hardware and third-party software to work has been a challenge. Isn’t it about time for an all-in-one webcam and software solution designed to make video calling easy for everyone? Wait no more. Your [...]

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jQuery Expand/Collapse Using Head Tags

Dave — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:50:30 +0000

I’ve spent a good chunk of the last two days working on an interesting project for one of my clients that I think the rest of the jQuery community could benefit from. The task started when my client came to me with an existing script that was being used in a DotNetNuke system to expand [...]

jQuery Expand/Collapse Using Head Tags is a post from: .NET Answers

DotNetNuke SecurityException AspnetHostingPermission

Dave — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:26:00 +0000

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 [...]

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Determine The Role of a User in ASP.NET

Dave — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:46:21 +0000

There are several controls that allow you to display content based on the role a user is in, including: - LoginView - LoginStatus And the web.config file allows us to control which pages can be viewed based on which role a user is in. But what if you need to determine the role a user [...]

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HttpContext.Items[] vs Session[]

Dave — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Since .NET first became available, passing data around during a request has become a lot easier. The ability to set a property has made that so. Still, there are times when setting a property just won’t do the trick. One such time is getting data from the middle tier back up to the view separate [...]

HttpContext.Items[] vs Session[] is a post from: .NET Answers

Acer Aspire Timeline Laptop

Dave — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:26:00 +0000

Averaging more than 8 hours of battery life, the Acer Aspire Timeline notebook PC series makes "all-day computing" a reality. You’ll be able to remain productive as you work remotely from 9 to 5 without ever stopping to plug in and recharge, or keep yourself entertained throughout an entire coast-to-coast flight without worrying whether you’ll [...]

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CmdAgent.exe utilizing 100% CPU

Dave — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:10:54 +0000

Yesterday was a very bad day for me. No sooner had I posted yesterday’s article then my computer became impossible to use. Even though I have anti-virus software installed on my computer, every indication was that I had picked up some virus, not just on the tower I use every day, but on the 2003 [...]

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Type Safe Session Variables

Dave — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:51:21 +0000

This may be obvious to everyone else on the Internet. Heck, it’s been obvious to me for several years. But I can’t find anyone else writing about this and it makes so much sense that I’m kicking myself for not trying it earlier. So… The Problem We’ve all been there. We are coding away and [...]

Type Safe Session Variables is a post from: .NET Answers

Forms Authentication – Manual Authentication

Dave — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:45:05 +0000

I’ve had several occasions in the past where I’ve needed to do my own authentication or I’ve needed to add some additional methods to the authentication process. As easy as Microsoft has made the authentication process, you might think that in order to manually authenticate you’d need to write all of your authentication code manually. [...]

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Programming ASP.NET 3.5

Dave — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:01:19 +0000

With Programming ASP.NET 3.5, you’ll quickly learn to create state-of-the-art applications using Microsoft’s popular web development technology and Visual Studio 2008. This updated bestseller provides comprehensive and easy-to-understand information to help you use several .NET 3.5 technologies for faster development and better web application performance-including ASP.NET AJAX for interactive user interfaces, LINQ for data access, [...]

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How to Excel as a Programmer (or anything else)

Dave — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:10:22 +0000

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. [...]

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Blue Stack Form Enhancer Review

Dave — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:25:17 +0000

The folks over at BlueStack asked me to take a look at their new Form Enhancer product. Which I will provide. The basic gist of this module is that by using jQuery and some images we can style the form elements on a page. It’s a pretty cool concept with some promising results. According to [...]

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Dynamically Change class Attribute From ASP.NET

Dave — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:25:00 +0000

I recently received a question from another programmer I know who’s been using PHP prior to ASP.NET that made me think harder about a problem we’ve all had in ASP.NET. The basic problem is this: How do you dynamically change the class of a hyperlink based on the page name so that the hyperlink that [...]

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Forms Authentication – Managing Users

Dave — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:02:42 +0000

While there are a lot of controls available in ASP.NET that allow you to manage forms authentication, one control that doesn’t exist is something that will allow you to manage your user list. Most of the time you don’t need this, but when you do, there is an obvious hole. Since we need to write [...]

Forms Authentication – Managing Users is a post from: .NET Answers

jQuery UI 1.6: The User Interface Library for jQuery

Dave — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:05:55 +0000

Modern web application user interface design requires rapid development and proven results. jQuery UI, a trusted plugin for the jQuery JavaScript library, gives you a trusted platform on which to build rich and engaging interfaces with maximum compatibility and stability and a minimum of time and effort. jQuery UI has a series of ready-made, great-looking [...]

jQuery UI 1.6: The User Interface Library for jQuery is a post from: .NET Answers

The Case Against Location: File System

Dave — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:45:19 +0000

See this picture? That’s what could happen to your application if you decide to build your ASP.NET web site using the File System location instead of the HTTP location. To illustrate, let me relate a situation that came up when I first started using ASP.NET back with Beta 2 of 1.0. Prior to ASP.NET 1.0, [...]

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Coding Priorities

Dave — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:55:17 +0000

When I was a younger programmer (I refuse to call myself an “old” programmer quite yet) I made a lot of mistakes. Chief among them was focusing on the wrong things at the wrong time. Now that I’m older (and wiser?) I’ve created a short priority list that I find helpful as I write a [...]

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DotNetNuke – Retrieving Host Access

Dave — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:30:50 +0000

One of the most frustrating events that can happen in any system is forgetting your password and not being able to retrieve it. DotNetNuke has a retrieval system built in, but you have to make sure your system can send mail in order to make use of it. And even if it sends mail, it [...]

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Forms Authentication – Creating Users

Dave — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:36:32 +0000

Last week we installed the tables into our database and set up the database connection so that we could implement forms based authentication. This week, we need to put into place a way of creating users for our system. The easiest way to do that is to create a form that allows our user to [...]

Forms Authentication – Creating Users is a post from: .NET Answers

Murach’s ASP.NET 3.5 Web Programming with C# 2008

Dave — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:28:42 +0000

Already know how to code C# 2008 desktop applications? Then, you’re ready to master web programming with the 3.5 edition of this best-selling ASP.NET book from Murach Books. It covers the 3.5 features that provide new functionality…like the ListView and DataPager data controls, LINQ data sources, new CSS-related tools, and ASP.NET AJAX…while it teaches you [...]

Murach’s ASP.NET 3.5 Web Programming with C# 2008 is a post from: .NET Answers

iTextSharp Tables

Dave — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:43:14 +0000

PDF Tables in iTextSharp work enough like HTML tables that the slight differences between the two make programming tables for a PDF a bit confusing the first time you try. I hope to describe some of those differences here so that your experience might be a bit smoother than mine was as you start to [...]

iTextSharp Tables is a post from: .NET Answers

The case against i, j, and k

Dave — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:55:38 +0000

One of the greatest programming books of all time is Code Complete by Steve McConnell. I often recommend this book to new programmers and when I was running the IT department of the Dot Com I was working for, I made it required reading. In it, Steve makes a great case against using i, j, [...]

The case against i, j, and k is a post from: .NET Answers

Copy And Paste And Bugs

Dave — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:21:10 +0000

We all do it. I’m sure of it. It’s too easy. I need code that looks almost like something else I wrote so I just copy and paste it over to the new code. Done. But at what cost? Is it really that much like the other code? Did you forget to change something? What [...]

Copy And Paste And Bugs is a post from: .NET Answers

Setting Up Your Forms Based Authentication Database

Dave — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:41:24 +0000

I was recently asked if I would cover some topics related to Forms Based Authentication. The person who requested this information has some specific issues that he wants covered that I won’t be covering for a while because I think there are some other issues that need to be covered first. One of those is [...]

Setting Up Your Forms Based Authentication Database is a post from: .NET Answers

Automated Web Testing with the WebBrowserControl

Dave — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:55:36 +0000

Actually, I used this technique to automate submitting information to a set of web sites, but you could use this same technique to script any web site, including one you are currently developing, so that you can verify that the site actually does what it is supposed to do. You might already have a testing [...]

Automated Web Testing with the WebBrowserControl is a post from: .NET Answers

Hosting Issues.

Dave — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:12:52 +0000

I’m experiencing hosting “issues” with the post I want to put up this morning (this isn’t the first time I’ve had this “issue”). So I’m going to move to one of my other hosting companies that knows how to deal with Apache servers correctly and hopefully resume posting tomorrow. For the record, avoid HSphere-based hosting [...]

Hosting Issues. is a post from: .NET Answers

Storing An Image To a Database in .NET

Dave — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:36:16 +0000

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 [...]

Storing An Image To a Database in .NET is a post from: .NET Answers

CSharp VAR Misconceptions

Dave — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:39:21 +0000

I find it amazing that .NET 3.5 has been out for over a year and people still don’t understand the “var” keyword. Just last week I got a comment on one of my videos asking why I used “var” so much. Isn’t that only supposed to be used when you don’t know what the return [...]

CSharp VAR Misconceptions is a post from: .NET Answers

Head First Ajax – Book

Dave — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:11:00 +0000

Ajax is no longer an experimental approach to website development, but the key to building browser-based applications that form the cornerstone of Web 2.0. Head First Ajax gives you an up-to-date perspective that lets you see exactly what you can do — and has been done — with Ajax. With it, you get a highly [...]

Head First Ajax – Book is a post from: .NET Answers

Why You Should Click on the Ad If It Interests You

Dave — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:58:00 +0000

I posted a statement on Twitter about how I am convinced that programmers are cheapskates and was met with a response that stated he “won’t click ads…” which is exactly what prompted my tweet in the first place. So I asked, Why? “Most of the time they aren’t relevant to me, and if they are, [...]

Why You Should Click on the Ad If It Interests You is a post from: .NET Answers

Unique BODY tags per page

Dave — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:50:15 +0000

Last week I talked about a situation where the previous programmer had placed the body tag inside the ContentPlaceholder in order to allow for a different body tag on the page. Since this is a project that I am actively involved in, I’ve been thinking about the easiest way to “fix” the code so that [...]

Unique BODY tags per page is a post from: .NET Answers

How to evaluate technology choices

Dave — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:42:23 +0000

My post yesterday about an easy way of implementing templated e-mail was met by a comment suggesting that using XSLT would allow for more flexibility. Which is true. Once it was suggested, I started asking myself, “but is it the BEST method of implementing templated e-mail?” I think, as programmers, we tend to think that [...]

How to evaluate technology choices is a post from: .NET Answers

Templated E-Mail using .NET

Dave — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:57:12 +0000

One thing I’m pretty consistent about is letting the computer do most of my work for me. As a “programmer” I really don’t like to program. I prefer to solve problems. You’ve already seen the effects of this in how I program PDF files where I use form fields and fill them at runtime rather [...]

Templated E-Mail using .NET is a post from: .NET Answers

Ajax: The Definitive Guide

Dave — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:51:44 +0000

Is Ajax a new technology, or the same old stuff web developers have been using for years? Both, actually. This book demonstrates not only how tried-and-true web standards make Ajax possible, but how these older technologies allow you to give sites a decidedly modern Web 2.0 feel. Ajax: The Definitive Guide explains how to use [...]

Ajax: The Definitive Guide is a post from: .NET Answers

Unrecognized Tag Prefix or Device Filter ‘asp’

Dave — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:15:10 +0000

One of the companies I work for recently took over a project from another vendor. As we started to maintain the site, we noticed that we could not drag and drop controls onto the page and get any more than a stub of the control. <asp:hyperlink runat=”server”></hyperlink> is ALL we got when we dropped the [...]

Unrecognized Tag Prefix or Device Filter ‘asp’ is a post from: .NET Answers

Infinite DotNetNuke Skin Sets For One Low Price

Dave — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:22:00 +0000

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. I think it was shortly after I wrote the original review that [...]

Infinite DotNetNuke Skin Sets For One Low Price is a post from: .NET Answers

Test Sending Email without a Server in ASP.NET

Dave — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:00:16 +0000

By now, most people are familiar with the fact that ASP.NET will send mail from the codebehind by simply adding a few lines to your web.config file and adding another few lines of code in the codebehind file. But it wasn’t until recently that I found that you don’t need to have access to an [...]

Test Sending Email without a Server in ASP.NET is a post from: .NET Answers

“I don’t exactly have random $$$ hanging about.”

Dave — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:42:28 +0000

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. I don’t know why it bothers me when another programmer says [...]

“I don’t exactly have random $$$ hanging about.” is a post from: .NET Answers

HTC Touch HD T8282 World Phone

Dave — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:50:21 +0000

Enjoy music videos, films and streaming like you never thought possible on a mobile device. Experience internet browsing so exhilarating… it feels like you never left your laptop at home. Its all delivered to you on a pixel-packed 3.8 WVGA screen and seamlessly tied together with touch-responsive TouchFLOTM 3D. The ultrafast 3.5G technology lets you [...]

HTC Touch HD T8282 World Phone is a post from: .NET Answers

Programming SEO – Cross Linking Titles

Dave — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:17:20 +0000

Here is another interesting way to programmatically add link juice to web pages from within your own site. It will require that you have pages created dynamically from a database and that you have some way of retrieving the title. You’ll remember that one of the ways of helping a page rank in the search [...]

Programming SEO – Cross Linking Titles is a post from: .NET Answers

iTextSharp – HTML to PDF – Finishing Up

Dave — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:19:24 +0000

In the last post I mentioned there were a few topics we need to close up today. The two topics we’ve left undone are popping the attribute information off the stack when we hit a closing element and dealing with the paragraph gap that normally appears between paragraph elements. The first thing you’ll want to [...]

iTextSharp – HTML to PDF – Finishing Up is a post from: .NET Answers

Upgrading Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 64bit

Dave — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Since I own an MSDN subscription, I was able to get my hands on a copy of Windows 7 last Thursday. I didn’t actually install it until this past Sunday because Sunday is the only day I don’t need my computer and I needed a point in time where I could know I would have [...]

Upgrading Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 64bit is a post from: .NET Answers

MSI GT735-024US 17-Inch Laptop

Dave — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:29:26 +0000

AMD Turion Ultra ZM-82 2.2GHz Processor 2GB x 2 DDR2 667/800 RAM, 4GB Max Memory Supported 320GB SATA Hard Drive, Super Multi Optical Drive Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium LCD 17-Inch WSXGA+/Glare 1680 x 1050, ATI HD3850 512MB, Chipset ATI RX781+ SB700, Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium; LCD 17 WSXGA+/Glare 1680 x 1050; AMD Turion [...]

MSI GT735-024US 17-Inch Laptop is a post from: .NET Answers

VB.NET Processing Before WinForm Display

Dave — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:52:55 +0000

I woke up this morning to an interesting question. “Using VB.net 2008, I want my project to be a Windows Forms Application, but upon startup, I want to check a few files to see if they exist and if they don’t I do not want the startup form to load. I just want the program [...]

VB.NET Processing Before WinForm Display is a post from: .NET Answers

What is .NET’s Object.GetHashCode() Used For?

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:11:40 +0000

Here is a great question from a visitor. “What is the exact use of GetHashCode of an object in .net? Does it have any relation with garbage collection?” Let’s answer the second question first. No, it has nothing to do with garbage collection. According to the Microsoft documentation, “The GetHashCode method is suitable for use [...]

What is .NET’s Object.GetHashCode() Used For? is a post from: .NET Answers

iTextSharp – HTML to PDF – Writing the PDF

Dave — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:24:18 +0000

Last week we parsed the HTML and created code that keeps track of the various attributes we are going to need when we create the PDF. Today we will finish the code and create the Elements that we can include in our PDF document. One consideration we will need to keep in mind as we [...]

iTextSharp – HTML to PDF – Writing the PDF is a post from: .NET Answers

Google Voice, Apple, and the FCC – One More Reason I Won’t Own an iPhone

Dave — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:46:02 +0000

Last year I provided a list of reasons why I won’t buy an iPhone. Since that time I’ve had a chance to play with one and I must admit, it is a pretty cool little toy. The keyboard is a lot more usable than I thought it would be. It has the ability to accept [...]

Google Voice, Apple, and the FCC – One More Reason I Won’t Own an iPhone is a post from: .NET Answers

Logitech Illuminated Ultrathin Keyboard with Backlighting

Dave — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:36:04 +0000

I had been using the standard keyboard that came with my computer for years. It never even occurred to me that buying another keyboard might be a good idea. I mean, a keyboard is a keyboard, right? But then my keyboard died in an accident with a cup of coffee and I needed to get [...]

Logitech Illuminated Ultrathin Keyboard with Backlighting is a post from: .NET Answers

.NET Image Scaling in CSharp

Dave — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:04:15 +0000

One feature of .NET that I use regularly is image scaling. I typically use this on web sites that need image upload capabilities. I assume the user is going to send me an image that is significantly bigger than what I could use and then scale it down before storing it. I also use this [...]

.NET Image Scaling in CSharp is a post from: .NET Answers