Jose R. Guay Paz

Twitter contest thanks to Apress

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:38:00 GMT

Hi all.

Thanks to the wonderful people of Apress I have 5 coupons worth each for a free copy of the ebook:

If you want one just need you to do 3 simple tasks:

Follow me on Twitter: @jrguay (this is mandatory because I will DM you the code if you are selected as winner)
Tweet: "@Apress books rock because..." (complete the phrase with your thoughts).
Include in your tweet the tag #APRESSGUAY so I can look for the tweets later.

The rules are simple, I will randomly select the winners on Tuesday 29th at 12PM (CST) and will DM the winners the respective code. You can use the code to purchase the ebook in the Apress website and you'll get a 100% discount.

[UPDATE]: The winners of the contest are: @gersonmayen, @ddurose, @rgreen, @EdvL & @gromer. Thank you!

Stay tune for more contests to come.

Enjoy!

The ASP.NET Capsule #24: Examine Output Compression

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:27:13 GMT

Hi all.

After an interesting discussion with Cristian Prieto (ASP.NET MVP) he pointed me in the right direction of a problem I was having.

The issue was with a web application I recently published to IIS. A new page I added was throwing an exception but instead of showing the error as I would expect, it was throwing a lot of garbage:

Now, the problem was that I didn’t have a way to find what the real problem was until he said that the output was probably being compressed, so after following his advice I checked with Firebug and the results were:

If you see the header Content-Encoding the value is gzip. That was a clear indicator of the output being compressed.

I checked the IIS7 settings and compression was not enabled, so I checked the Global.asax file and this is what I found:

        1: protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)

       2: {

       3:     if (Request.RawUrl.Contains(".aspx") && (Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"] != null))

       4:     {

       5:         if (Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"].ToLower().Contains("gzip"))

       6:         {

       7:             Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress, true);

       8:             Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip");

       9:         }

      10:     }

      11: }

After a couple of small refactorings thanks to ReSharper:

       1: protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)

       2: {

       3:     if (!Request.RawUrl.Contains(".aspx") || (Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"] == null)) return;

       4:     if (!Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"].ToLower().Contains("gzip")) return;

       5:     Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress, true);

       6:     Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip");

       7: }

I was now able to disable output compression and see what the issue was. After solving the problem I enabled it again and things work as expected.

Checkout Cristian’s blog post about output compression (in Spanish).

Enjoy!

News: New Free Tools from Telerik

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:14:50 GMT

TFS Work Item Manager & TFS Project Dashboard in a Nutshell

These two free applications have been designed to make working with Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server faster and easier. By promoting robust yet flexible project management practices, TFS Work Item Manager Beta and TFS Project Dashboard Beta allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software. Both applications have been built by Imaginet Resources using RadControls for WPF and are available for free download.

How Does TFS Work Item Manager Add Greater Value?

If you are using Visual Studio Team Foundation Server to manage your work items, you’ll simply love this tool! TFS Work Item Manager provides a unified platform to support those of you who want to take advantage of the Team Foundation Server without the need to switch from MS Team Explorer to MS Excel, to MS Project to find a certain work item. Its seamless integration with TFS allows you to add and edit work items, or save queries in real-time, along with the advantage of better work item visualization and improved team collaboration. The TFS Work Item Manager helps free up more developer time to actually write code, not manage what development teams have to do.

Video: Webcast JetBrains ReSharper en Español

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:33:54 GMT

Hola a todos.

El día 31 de Agosto tuvimos un webcast sobre JetBrains ReSharper. Acá está el video para quienes no pudieron asistir.

Adjunto también la presentación de PowerPoint debido a que por un problema técnico no se visualiza.

Descargar la presentación aquí y el video aquí.

Felicitaciones a Jorge Albergo Gamba Porras de Colombia por haberse sido el afortunado ganador de la licencia personal de ReSharper.

Saludos.

News: JetBrains YouTRACK (Formerly ‘Charisma’) Enters Beta Phase

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:59:44 GMT

YouTrack (previously code-named Charisma) is a keyboard-centric bug and issue tracker web application. Whatever you do with your issues, you can do it much faster because most of your actions involve two simple controls:

Search for issues by typing queries in the search box using query completion. Read more »

Modify multiple issues at once using the Command window. Read more »

Commands syntax is similar to that of YouTrack search queries, so you can get started in no time!

YouTrack offers even more ways to minimize the time you spend on reporting and/or processing issues:

Create new issues by simply pressing Alt+Ins from anywhere within YouTrack. Read more »
Use extensive keyboard support to create, edit, and navigate between issues — all major actions have easy-to-learn shortcuts. For example, to close an issue, you type fixed, and press Ctrl+Enter. Read more »
Assign tags to group issues the way you like, regardless of their attributes. For example, you can create a tag like fix it today and associate it with issues from different projects, subsystems, etc. Read more »

YouTrack is distributed as either a JAR or a WAR file, ready to run as a standalone Java process or to be deployed at any of today's popular application servers, including Apache Tomcat 5+, Apache Geronimo, Mortbay Jetty, Caucho Resin, and JBoss.

YouTrack is being developed with JetBrains MPS and is used to track issues in our own products, including TeamCity, dotTrace, MPS, and Web IDE.

News: JetBrains new product "Charisma" now in Early Access Program

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:58:00 GMT

Hi all.

The JetBrains team have created a new product codename "Charisma".

What is Charisma?

Charisma is a web-based issue tracker. Charisma's key features include:

Query-based issue search as an alternative to traditional issue filters.
Lightweight AJAX-based user interface to allow working with issues really fast.
Extensive keyboard support to make it easy to create, edit, and navigate between issues using keyboard.
Commands to quickly execute batch operations upon selected queries.

Charisma is being developed using JetBrains MPS and is used for tracking JetBrains TeamCity issues.

Supported Browsers

Mozilla Firefox 3+
Apple Safari 3+
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7+
Google Chrome 1+
Opera 9+

Where to Send Feedback?

Post issues to tracker
Use forum
Post comments to blog

Would you like to try it? Just click here to get access to the EAP version.

Enjoy!

The ASP.NET Capsule #23: Telerik RadControls for Silverlight 3

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:23:00 GMT

Hi all.

The guys from Telerik are very busy this days. Now they have just launched SP1 of their RadControls for Silverlight Q2 2009 with Silverlight 3 Support.

Acording to Hristo Maradjiev the service pack not only includes the official supported controls for Silverlight 3, but also a bunch of bug fixes and enhancements. The bad news is that Telerik will discontinue the future support for the Silverlight 2 controls. The dlls for SL2 will still be included in this release, but not in the installation files and the demos.

But that's not the end of the story, The RadControls for Silverlight 3 also supports .NET RIA Services:

You'll get:

Completely codeless binding to .NET RIA Services
Simple access to server-side data
Impressive validation support on the client and on the server
Patterns for dealing with common Line of Business scenarios
Automatic data paging by using the pager control
Easy re-use the ASP.NET authorization and authentication
Faster server-side sorting, filtering and paging for all data

So I hope you can take advantage of this important milestone in RadControls for Silverlight. Here are some links:

Enjoy!

The ASP.NET Capsule #22: Official Support for ASP.NET MVC by DevExpress

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:52:00 GMT

Hi all.

So, the guys from Developer Express can't be far behind, actually today they also announced officially the support for ASP.NET MVC in a blog post by Mehul Harry (DevExpress Technical Evangelist).

The post also announces the inmediate availability of a FREE demo application with source code included called DevExpress Mail Demo.

The post states the following regarding the demo application:

The MVC Mail demo is an online mail application similar in basic features to gmail.com or mail.com. So have fun playing around with it. And don’t worry about breaking the database because there isn’t one. Instead, this demo uses session state to persist the tiny amount of data. This allows you to tweak and bend the demo without us having to reset some database.

Check out the sample here: http://mvc.devexpress.com

Stay tuned for more on DevExpress and ASP.NET MVC. They are catching up and comming very strong.

Enjoy!

The ASP.NET Capsule #21: Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:42:00 GMT

Hi all.

Telerik was probably the first company to offer components that supported ASP.NET MVC long before it was released. Even Scott Hanselman created some videos with Preview 2 of ASP.NET MVC and showed how to incorporate Telerik components instead of regular components.

Now, they have gone one step further. Telerik is presenting the first CTP of their Extensions for ASP.NET MVC.

This first CTP of the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC lays a foundation for the new UI extension framework, and offers a preview of its power by providing .NET wrappers for the following jQueryUI components:

Accordion
The Accordion is a web control that allows you to provide multiple panes and display them one at a time. It is like having several collapsible panels where only one can be expanded at a time.

DatePicker
A highly configurable UI component that enables developers to quickly implement the most widely used date selection interface for web applications.

ProgressBar
The jQueryUI progress bar allows you to display the progress of processes.

Slider
A flexible UI component that allows users to select a value from a defined range using a smooth or step-based slider.

Message Box
Displays a message box that can contain text and symbols that inform and instruct the user.

Tab
Tabs are generally used to break content into multiple sections that can be swapped to save space, much like an accordion.

Web Asset Manager
Similar to the ScriptManager available in the Microsoft Ajax suite, the Web Asset Manager combines all configured JavaScript files to reduce the number of requests made to the web server.

More information can be found in the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC page. Also on TelerikTV the videos start to show up.

One important aspect is the licensing:

Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC will be offered under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL), the OSI-approved license used in the distribution of the ASP.NET MVC framework. Under this license, developers can freely use and redistribute the Telerik ASP.NET MVC Extensions in all projects, both commercial and open source. A commercial license that includes support will also be available.

And you can find the source code on CodePlex here: http://telerikaspnetmvc.codeplex.com/

Enjoy!

The ASP.NET Capsule #20: Telerik Reporting Now Supports Medium Trust

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:16:00 GMT

Hi all.

Many of us web developers use Telerik Reporting for our reporting needs, however when it comes to medium trust environments such as shared hosting packages Telerik Reporting wasn't of much help... until now!

There is great news from the folks of Telerik. In their blog the Telerik Reporting Team has announced the availability of Telerik Reporting Q2 2009 SP1 with Medium Trust Support. Here is the list of new things in this release.

Enjoy!

Book Review: ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Quickly

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:50:52 GMT

Hi all.

I want to share my thoughts about the book ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Quickly from Packt Publishing.

The book is quite nice I think. I has provided me the great option to read about ASP.NET MVC (as the name implies) quickly. I was very entertained with it.

I have to say it up front. I’m not an MVC guy. I said it before, and I will do it again. I still don’t find any good reason (to me) to start using ASP.NET MVC, not because I don’t like it or I consider it wrong or anything. It’s a matter of taste, job role and well, I just haven’t had the need. However, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn it, and because I have been doing some stuff for my own learning process, really I don’t get my head to “love” it as many of my fellow MVC friends do. (I love the webforms model… don’t ask.)

After clearing my position, I have to say a few things about this book:

Pros:

I like the “quickly” part of it. It doesn’t goes through the same thing over and over.
All chapters revolve around specific implementations, thus giving the opportunity to try it in a real program.
Samples DO work.
It’s very easy to follow and concepts are very clear and not too deep.
I ended up with lots of ideas on things to build (still figuring how to get the time for them).
You can have it as a quick reference.
I can help you get up and running with ASP.NET MVC “quickly”.

Cons:

As the “quickly” implies, the book is not the definite guide. If you are looking for a lot of information in one book, this is not the book for you.
ahh, hmmm, erm… that’s it I think…

So, hope this will help you make a decision in getting it or not.

Enjoy!

News: Webcast de ReSharper – Agosto 31 En Español

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:04:26 GMT

Este lunes 31 de agosto tendremos un webcast sobre Resharper. El evento es gratuito y será impartido en español.

Registro: https://www323.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000181573/Registration.aspx?pageName=r7p7f53m2d224k0v

Estaremos rifando una licencia de R# entre todos los asistentes.

Los esperamos!

The ASP.NET Capsule #19: Examine “The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference”

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:39:39 GMT

Hi all.

Today I got reported from one of our clients that he was having problems printing a report they have. The error he was getting was:

* An error occurred during local report processing.

o The definition of the report 'Main Report' is invalid.

+ An unexpected error occurred in Report Processing.

# The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)

I have never seen this error before, and it was odd because everything was working perfectly right yesterday (or so I though).

I’m using Microsoft local reports (RDLC files). The page only has a report viewer which loads a report file with some parameters coming from the query string.

The descriptions I found on the Internet was that the problem is caused by a reference to an assembly with specific version that is not found, but another one named the same with a different version is found.

I went looking into the GAC for the missing assembly, I could not believe this could be the cause, so after checking I found that there were two versions of the Microsoft.Reporting assemblies:

Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.Design, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.ProcessingObjectModel, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.ProcessingObjectModel, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebDesign, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.WinForms, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL
Microsoft.ReportViewer.WinForms, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL

The application is using version 8 of the report viewer and reports definitions, so I was very surprised that the application was not able to find the right assembly, even with the complete definition of version and public token in the Web.Config file.

The worst came when examine a test environment, setup on the same server, connecting to the same database and here it was working.

I just could not believe it.

Well, I checked every single post I found on the Internet until something came up that I haven’t tried yet, so I did it.

I recycled the Application Pool. What?? Yes! After recycling the application pool everything went back to normal.

I’m still trying to figure it out what happened because is not clear to me how the application pool got corrupted in that way. Once I find more (if I do find more) about it I will update this post.

Hope this will help some of you. And if you know more about this error, please comment so others benefit.

Thanks!

The ASP.NET Capsule #18: Running C# & VB.NET in the same web application

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:18:00 GMT

Hi all.

You know, sometimes you just find some code on the Internet or a colleague handed out a piece of code written in a language other than the one you use.

Well, fear no more. Just modify your Web.Config file to include the other compiler and off you go.

<system.codedom>
<compilers>

</compilers>
</system.codedom>

Enjoy!

Tips de Uso de Internet Explorer 8

Jose Rolando Guay Paz — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:39:48 GMT

Este arículo está en español / This article is in Spanish

Hola a todos.

Quiero mostrarles algunos tips que pueden ser útiles en el uso de Internet Explorer 8.

1. Personalizar la barra de título

Esta personalización se puede realizar por medio de una llave en el registro. Para ello tenemos que abrir el programa editor del registro de Windows.

Para usuarios de Windows XP: Ir al botón Inicio y seleccionar la opción ejecutar. Escribir regedit y presionar la tecla ENTER. Para usuarios de Windows Vista y Windows 7: Ir al botón Inicio y escribir regedit y presionar la tecla ENTER

Una vez en el programa del registro, expande la llave HKEY_CURRENT_USER y luego expande las llaves Software -> Microsoft -> Internet Explorer ->Main.

Luego debes presionar el click derecho en cualquier area abierta (no sobre un valor o llave) y seleccionar la opción Nuevo -> Valor de Cadena. Debes nombrar a este Nuevo valor “Window Title”. Luego presionas ENTER y listo.

Debes editar el dato del valor “Window Title” que acabas de crear y lo que escribas allí será lo que verás la próxima vez que reinicies Internet Explorer

2. Buscar más fácilmente

La mayoría de buscadores tienen facilidades para hacer las búsquedas más fácilmente. En Internet Explorer 8 puedes realizer una búsqueda con solo ingresar en la barra de direcciones un signo de interrogación seguido de un espacio en blanoc y finalizando con las palabras que deseas buscar.

3. Ahorrar tinta/toner al imprimir

Si deseas imprimir una página pero no quieres imprimir todo, por ejemplo, no quieres imprimir las imagines puedes utilizar las herramientas de desarrollador (F12). Normalmente esta opción abre una nueva ventana con varias opciones. Debes ir a la opción de Imágenes y luego seleccionar “Deshabilitar Imágenes”. Esto hará que todas las imagenes de tu página no se muestren para realizar la impresión.

4. Incrementa el límite de descargas

Por defecto, Internet Explorer 7 tiene un límite de dos descargas simultáneas pero Internet Explorer 8 cuenta con 6 descargas simultáneas. Si cuentas con una conexión de Internet lo suficientemente buena puedes aprovecharla aumentando la cantidad de descargas que puedes realizar a 10. Solo debes seguir el asistente paso a paso en esta página de soporte http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=282402#fixit4me.

5. Ejecutar Internet Explorer 8 sin Add-Ons

Si tienes problemas usando Internet Explorer 8, puede ser debido a un problema con algún Add-On. Esto puedes detectarlo ejecutando Internet Explorer sin add-ons. Para ello puedes ir al botón inicio y ejecutar el siguiente comando: iexplore.exe –extoff.

Verás que incluso Internet Explorer 8 arranca más rápido y en general corre más rápido. Luego puedes ir habilitando los add-ons uno a uno para verificar cual te está causando el problema y buscar una version actualizada o desinstalarlo.

Espero te sirva.

Saludos.