When you start a connection to SignalR for the first time, you are assigned a ConnectionId.  SignalR uses this to determine what messages should go to you, and allows the server to direct messaging at a particular user.

If you were to refresh the page, SignalR will assign you a NEW ConnectionId.  This could be good or bad… but if you’re trying to maintain some sense of state between your clients and the hub, it’s bad.

So I looked into how to make SignalR reuse ConnectionIds in the case of a page refresh.  There are really two steps involved.

1) Set a cookie on the client

When you start() a new connection, SignalR will return a ConnectionId.  You’ll want to set a cookie with that ConnectionId in it.

$.connection.hub.start().done(function () {
        alert("Connected!");
        var myClientId = $.connection.hub.id;
        setCookie("srconnectionid", myClientId);
    });

    function setCookie(cName, value, exdays) {
        var exdate = new Date();
        exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate() + exdays);
        var c_value = escape(value) + ((exdays == null) ? "" : "; expires=" + exdate.toUTCString());
        document.cookie = cName + "=" + c_value;
    }

As you can see, this gets the ConnectionId from the hub connection and stores it in a cookie.

2) Use your own IConnectionIdFactory

This might be scary territory for you, but it’s actually pretty simple.  We want to create our own version of the IConnectionIdFactory interface for SignalR to use.

public class MyConnectionFactory : IConnectionIdFactory
    {
        public string CreateConnectionId(IRequest request)
        {
            if (request.Cookies["srconnectionid"] != null)
            {
                return request.Cookies["srconnectionid"];
            }

            return Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
        }
    }

This does two things.  First, it’ll check your cookie for a ConnectionId it should use.  If it exists, we’ll simply return that ConnectionId and all will be good in the world.

If the cookie does NOT exist, we need to generate one.  By default, SignalR uses a GUID, so we’ll just repeat that functionality.  You can use any value you want, but make sure it’s unique.

Don’t forget to wire it up!  Add this to you Global.asax file under Application_Start().

AspNetHost.DependencyResolver.Register(typeof(IConnectionIdFactory), () => new MyConnectionFactory());

And you’re all set!  SignalR will now use your new ConnectionIdFactory to generate or reuse ConnectionIds.

Enjoy!

Kevin Griffin
@1kevgriff

Series Recap:

1. Virginia Air and Space Center
2. Busch Gardens (this post)

Busch Gardens Williamsburg
http://www.buschgardens.com

Admission

Adults: $66.99
Children: $56.99

Parking: $13.00 (Preferred is $18.00 – gets you closer to the main gate.)

Originally owned by Anheuser-Busch, Busch Gardens has been a model amusement park since 1975.  It has been named the “Country’s Most Beautiful Amusement Park” for 21 straight years.  Walking around the park, you’ll be taken back to old Europe.  The park is divided into several “countries”, England, France, Germany, Spain, and Scotland.  All the rides in the difference countries are themed after legends and culture references.

If you’re a roller coaster fan, Busch Gardens has 4 major roller coasters.  Depending on schedule, a 5th coaster called Verbolten should be open during MADExpo.  That doesn’t mean all the fun is for adults.  There are several kid oriented sections of the park, including a full section themed after Sesame Street.  There is literally fun for the whole family.

Griff’s Note:

If you’re trying to be frugal, think about eating at one of the many restaurants around the park.  Better yet, there is a full picnic area out the main gates.  Many families bring food with them, and take a break at lunch time.

Best food and entertainment in the park, in my opinion, is the Festhaus.  Authentic german cuisine!  Oh yeah, there is pizza, burgers, and stuff like that too for the kids (wussy adults).  BBQ over in France is also an excellent choice, unless it’s raining.

My favorite roller coaster is, without a doubt, Apollo’s Chariot.  The best seat on the ride is in the very last row, left (driver side) of the car.  A trick for the harness is to ball your hands into fists and positions them between the ride restraint and your lap.  This prevents the ride operators from locking them down too tightly, and you can experience some excellent weightlessness on the first several drops.  Don’t worry, you won’t fall out.

A word of caution.  Busch Gardens is designed around the hills and river.  This means a lot of walking up and down huge hills to get from one side of the park to the other.  There is a train and a skyride for these purposes.  I recommend you study the map, and where the stations are.  A train ride at the very being of the trip will provide you with an excellent view of what the park has to offer.

Oh yeah, lastly… preferred parking is only good if you get there first thing in the morning.  All other parking requires a quick tram ride to the main entrance, and preferred puts you near the main gate.  It’s my experience that you’ll actually walk more with preferred parking if you get there late.  What I’m saying is… it’s not really worth the $5 more.

Until today…

Oh yes.  Tim Schafer.  He’s the guy behind some of the best video games of all time.  Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle. CLASSICS!

He wants to do another classic adventure game.

I’m supporting him, and you should too.

Series Recap:

1. Virginia Air and Space Center (this post)

Virginia Air and Space Center
http://www.vasc.org/

Admission

Adults: $9.00
Children (3-18): $7.00

Located in Hampton, Virginia, the birthplace of America’s space program, the Virginia Air & Space Center features dozens of hands-on air and space exhibits, a premiere interactive aviation gallery that spans 100 years of flight, more than 30 historic aircraft, unique space flight artifacts and more! Your imagination will soar as you launch a rocket, pilot a space shuttle, become an air traffic controller, fly an airplane, and climb aboard a WWII bomber! Come face to face with the Apollo 12 Command Module that went to the moon, a Mars meteorite, a DC-9 passenger jet, a replica 1903 Wright Flyer and more!

Griff’s Note:

I’ve been to the Virginia Air and Space Center several times in my life.  It’s a located in a great part of Hampton, with free parking and close to other attractions.  It’s nothing like a Smithsonian, but you and your kids are sure to have a great time looking at the attractions.  This facility also has an IMAX theater with educational movies, and a blockbuster hit (depends on the time of year).

That would explain why you haven’t seen much from me in terms of traditional tech blogging that I had been trying to accomplish in the past.

Recently, I moved the blog over to a new host, and I’m hoping that I can start spitting out some new content for all my loyal readers.

Enjoy!

Kevin Griffin
@1kevgriff

First of all, to the entire Windows Phone team: Good job with Mango.  I’m highly impressed with several of the features.  There is just one feature that really grinds my gears.

The Maps application.

You got that one wrong.  Not wrong as in “oops, wrong turn.  I’ll just take the next right.” but wrong as “oops, wrong turn.  Dang, this turnpike is 15 miles long with no exits, adding 30 minute to my commute… wrong”.  That particular example is real life, as I experienced it a couple days ago on a trip to Philly.  Back to that in a minute.

Where do we being?  How about at the beginning of the experience and work our way through the end of the commute?

Imagine you’re a user, and you’ve decided you wanted to take a drive from Chesapeake, VA to Philly, PA.  You pull out your trusty Windows Phone and go to the maps application.  All the folks are raving about this great turn-by-turn feature, and having been a Droid user in the past, you decided to give it a go.

Selecting an address is easy.  Type it into the search box, and tap “Directions”.  You’re provided a map, and your next turn in very large type.  So far so good.  You get into your car, put the GPS in the cup holder and start driving.

First thing you’re going to notice is that the map doesn’t automatically orient itself so you can make logical sense of where you’re going.  Most (read: all) GPS software do this.  Even if you’re heading west, the map will orient itself so “west” is facing up.  With Windows Phone, you have “tap” the map for this feature to turn on.  It also enables tracking of your position (also not on by default).

Next scenario, you’re coming up to a very important turn.  Most (read: all) GPS systems will warn you 1-2 miles before the turn.  They’ll say something like, “In 1.25 miles, make right turn”.  Makes sense right?  Not for Windows Phone.  You’ll hear a very distinction “beep” or “boop” or whatever.  That’s the sound saying you’ve should have turned 5 seconds ago.

Since you heard a noise, you pick up the phone to see what happened.  It says make “10 miles, make right turn”.  What it doesn’t tell you is that those were the instructions 10 miles ago!  Windows Phone doesn’t see the need to provide you up-to-date directional information.  Want up-to-date directional information?  TAP the screen and it’ll refresh.

“You’ve gone a different route” is what you’ll hear next.  Since you carelessly missed that right turn you should have known about, Windows Phone will gladly recalculate for you, right?  NOPE!  Again, you have to TAP the screen in order to get new directions.

While we’re on the subject of tapping, Windows Phone will update everything on a tap except one thing: total mileage left and time.  Want to know approximately how much time is left in your commute based on current conditions?  You have to leave the navigation portion of the app and start it again.  Same thing for mileage.  Why can’t we update that as we go, or at least when I tap the screen!?

I know many of you will defend this application, saying that’s its perfectly acceptable.

DON’T DEFEND BAD SOFTWARE!  

It is sold as a “turn-by-turn” navigation feature, and while technically it lives up to that name, it fails to recognize the experience associated with it.  The most common use of turn-by-turn is in vehicles moving between 25+ mph.  You should be able to drop the device in a cup holder and not have to pick it up until you’re at your destination.

The Maps app for Windows Phone encourages drivers to take their eyes off the road, increasing the chances of them getting into a serious accident.

And I really didn’t want to use the “G” word in this post, but look… Google did it.  Google did it 3 years ago.  Google is continuing to make the experience better.  Couldn’t you all have just “looked” at the Google Navigation app?  I’m sure you could have designed something similar that was more “metro”.

Don’t give me the excuse of “there are other apps available on the marketplace”.  If the phone is marketed to have a feature, it needs to be the best it can be.  I shouldn’t have to drop $40 on another application to replace the functionality the phone was marketed to provide in the first place.

I understand this is “version 2″, and you all won’t get it right until version 3.  So please, take all my comments, grab a Droid/iPhone/Garmin/TomTom and come back with a kick butt new navigation app.  I believe in you.

Rock on,

Kevin “it took me 45 minutes longer to get to Philly because of my Windows Phone” Griffin

PS: For everyone else, leave your thoughts in the comments.

However, unlike last year when I was a Client Application Development MVP, this time around they’ve moved me into the ASP.NET/IIS product group.  Really, I feel this is the group where I can really grow and reach out, as most of my day to day work is using ASP.NET.  At the time when I received my first MVP award, I was doing a little bit in WPF and Silverlight, but my focus wasn’t in those spaces.

And besides, this is probably a good move seeing how Windows 8 is going to be all HTML5 and JavaScript. </sarcasm, please don’t take my MVP away>

Congrats to all new and renewed MVPs in all expertise’s.  Even if I had lost my MVP, I would continue doing the work that I do every day in the community.  Without this community I don’t know where I would be in my career.

OfficeWriter is a product that handles two common functions for software applications, reading and writing to Excel and Word documents.

When I was approached to evaluate OfficeWriter, I had one particular purpose that I wanted to try it for.  The application I was working on required the output of massive excel spreadsheets.  I’m talking about 60 worksheets, each with 75,000-100,000 rows and ~20 columns. 

In the past, I had used the OpenXML SDK to do all of my Excel manipulation, but I often saw myself writing wrappers around the methods in order to make the process easier.  OfficeWriter not only made the process of creating Excel spreadsheets easier, but it did it in a fraction of the time it would’ve taken me (my code was very optimized).

I did run into a bug with the large files I was working with.  There is a feature in the library to automatically size the columns of any populated cells in a workbook.  I ran this feature across all my workbooks, and ended up throwing out of memory exceptions. 

The folks at SoftArtisans were very helpful in providing me the support I needed to work around the issue, even providing me up to the minute builds of the product.  Anyone purchasing the product should expect the same level of support I received.

The interfaces for the library were easy to work with, and the documentation on the website was a good starting point.  There are several example projects available that cover a variety of use-cases. 

I did not test any of the Word functionality, as I did not have a need for it at the time.

I would recommend anyone that’s working with Excel or Word documents at least check out a trial of the software.  There is no link available to a direct demo download, but there are links to contact the test drive team for your use cases.

http://www.softartisans.com/

I would like to publically thank Antech for providing me with a foundation to build my career off of.  I came to Antech as a college newbie, recently laid off from Symantec, with no .NET experience of any kind.  Within weeks, I was able to grow into a position where I was not only functional, but able to provide meaningful feedback about the applications being built and the processes use to build them.  Antech was the reason I found the developer community, and was one of the leading reasons why I started the Hampton Roads .NET Users Group.  Without them, I have no idea where I would be right now.

I’m pleased to announce that on June 1st, 2011, I’ll be starting my new position with ComponentOne as a Technical Evangelist. 

In this position, I’ll be working closely with Rich Dudley to help promote ComponentOne in the developer community.  As a Technical Evangelist, it is my goal to help you all in your communities in anyway possible.  Please feel free to use me as a resource.

If you’re going to be in the Kansas City area on June 25th, come out to the Kansas City Developer Conference to see me!  I’ll be talking about MVVM!  If you’re in the area, you should definitely come out.

A couple weeks ago we announced that we’re going to be holding our first regional event here in the Mid Atlantic, and the name of that event is MADExpo (Mid Atlantic Developer Expo).  Scheduled for June 30th – July 1st.  It’ll be held at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, VA.

Last week, we announced our pricing as well as opened up registration.  Early bird pricing starts at $99 and will run until May 1st.  After that, full pricing begins at $149.

BUT KEVIN?!  Code Camps and stuff are free!

That’s correct!  But code camps also have a fraction of what MADExpo is going to have, and suffer from regional fragmentation.  The goal of MADExpo is to unite all developers in the Mid Atlantic, and our sister regions, for two days of awesome developer content.

What should I look forward to?

Most code camps have a very “Microsoft” feel to them.  .NET this, C# that.  At MADExpo, we’re making certain that you have the opportunity to explore other avenues of software development.  If you’ve been curious about Ruby, we’re bringing in sessions built for you.  Have you seen people working with touch screens and Natural User Interfaces?  We have leading experts in the field to show you how it’s done!

There are beginners topics, and more advanced topics that’ll make you scratch your head.

But wait!  There’s more!

Additionally, we’re adding a full day side session devoted to electronics and hacking.  If you’re into soldering, or thought it looked interesting, take a talk through our own mini-Maker’s Faire.  Learn from geeks just like you who are building crazy machines with Arduino and code!

But I have kids…

Bring them along!  We’re proud to announce a one-day MADKidz workshop for kids of all ages.  This event will help your youngster learn more everything from software developer to electronics.

The other tangibles

This event is also about networking.  Meet other developers from other parts of the country (and maybe even different countries!)  Exchange ideas, discuss issues, and have fun!  I will always say that some of my best friends have come from the event I’ve attended.

The hidden secret

Want a free pass to MADExpo?  SPEAK!  Events like this are terrific opportunities to get out and flex your presentation muscles.  No developer subject is taboo.  Submitting costs nothing.  Go to http://madexpo.us/speakers to submit a talk!

Or just register!

Go!  Register for MADExpo right now.  It’s worth it!