The other day I was implementing a page block widget using jQuery and BlockUI. The code kinda looked like this:

The trick it seems is to close empty tags with an explicit closing tag. i.e. <div id=”progressMessage”></div> and then life is good again.

Fiddler to the rescue yet again….

If you’re doing jQuery/AJAX –> web service kinda things like this:

function submitWooshTest() {
    var adslOrderID = gQs.get("orderid"); 

    $.ajax({
        type: "POST", url: "ScriptServices/WooshTester.asmx/RequestWooshTest",
        data: {
            adslOrderID: adslOrderID,
            faultType: $('#wooshFaultType').val(),
            hasWorked: $('#wooshHasWorked').is(':checked'),
            disruptive: $('#wooshDisruptive').is(':checked'),
            faultDate: $('#wooshFaultDate').val(),
            faultTime: $('#wooshFaultHour').val() + ':' + $('#wooshFaultMinute').val()
        },
        success: function(result) {
            $.unblockUI();
            $.blockUI({ message: $('#wooshResults') });
            showWooshTests();
        },
        error: function(x, s, e) {
            debug(x, s, e);
        }
    });       
}

And the web service end point looks like:

Don’t forget to configure your web services protocols in your web.config:

Otherwise when accessing your functionality from a browser that isn’t on the localhost you’ll get the following cryptic error message:

System.InvalidOperationException: Request format is unrecognized for URL unexpectedly ending in '/RequestWooshTest.

[InvalidOperationException: Request format is unrecognized for URL unexpectedly ending in '/RequestWooshTest.]
   System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandlerFactory.CoreGetHandler(Type type, HttpContext context, HttpRequest request, HttpResponse response) +405881
   System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandlerFactory.GetHandler(HttpContext context, String verb, String url, String filePath) +212
   System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory.GetHandler(HttpContext context, String requestType, String url, String pathTranslated) +47
   System.Web.HttpApplication.MapHttpHandler(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath path, String pathTranslated, Boolean useAppConfig) +193
   System.Web.MapHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +93
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean&amp; completedSynchronously) +155

If you ever end up with a totally broken .NET Framework install (say, after the installer for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 falls over), then head over here and get a copy of Aaron Stebners .NET Cleanup Tool:

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/05/30/611355.aspx

This is a tool of last resort and let me tell you things were pretty grim and last-resort like last Friday night for one of our production boxes (and me). This got me out of a huge hole where both .NET 3.0 and .NET 2.0 were so badly broken, the .NET 3.5 SP1 installer fell over mid flight, that I couldn't even repair/uninstall from Add/Remove Programs and I couldn't even run the redistributable installers to do a fix/replace/repair.

This is the book that the cult of Scientology seem to have managed to pull from sale on Amazon, Waterstones etc using their usual dodgy legal intimidation tactics. The book itself doesn't cover much more than you'll find on Operation Clambake other than a more personal story of one man's 22 year stint with the cult. I quite enjoyed it and read it cover to cover in a single sitting.

You can still order the book from Eason books in Ireland at http://www.eason.ie/look/9781903582848/Complex/John-Duignan.

7/10

Somehow just about every order I placed that was eligible for Amazon Prime arrived later than if I'd stuck to the 2-3 day free delivery. At the moment I'm waiting on a couple of books I'd normally order from Computer Manuals (they're always delivered next day). The books in question were dispatched from Amazon's fulfillment centre in Glasgow and have somehow got lost between there and the local City Link depot in Glenrothes. How hard can it be to send a box from one side of Scotland to the other?

Utterly useless.

Add to that I find that the royal mail have been saving up packages sent by first class letter post and delivering when it was more convenient to the postman.

Amazon Prime is a nice idea but so dependant on the vagaries of our postal service. I cancelled and I got my money back.

More like nothing happening, not even acting. M. Night Shyamalan seems to have some kinda hold over Hollywood but to be honest his films are pretty average to below par. The Happening is just a total waste of time and money. Walberg's acting was appalling and the rest of the cast were a joke.

Utter rubbish: 0/10

Sometime back in July or August Microsoft slipped out a driver for PHP 5 on windows. It uses the SQL Native Client which means that it also supports automatic transparent client redirect. Change this connection info array from:

$connectionInfo = array("Database"=>"AdventureWorks",
                            "UID"=>"sa",
                            "PWD"=>"foobar23$");

to

$connectionInfo = array("Database"=>"AdventureWorks",
                            "UID"=>"sa",
                            "PWD"=>"foobar23$",
                            "Failover_Partner"=>"mirror.sql.local");

and you've now got automatic failover capability. You need to be running a witness for this magic to happen. If you're running on a Linux box this capability is not available but you can always try something like:

http://www.evolt.org/failover-database-connection-with-php-mysql

Despite what SQL Books Online tell you about being able to use IP addresses to specify the failover partner and witness servers, this appears to be not quite true in practice.

I spent almost a day and a half configuring a HA mirroring rig using certificates for authentication (the servers are standalone and not in a domain) and was buggered if I could get the mirror and the witness to connect. Without this there'd be no automatic failover. Manual failover worked just fine, but our project requires Automatic Failover. It all seemed like an exercise in futility.

I even had the FQ domain names of all the machines participating in the Principal, Mirror and Witness rig in their respective HOSTS files, but still no dice.

Eventually I tried setting the PARTNER and WITNESS using the FQ machine names as they appear in the HOSTS files. Suddenly it all started working. Querying sys.database_mirroring on both principal and mirror at last showed the witness as connected.

I caved and bought a Mac Mini 2ghz a couple of days back. I quite like OS X and it has quite a good out of box experience. My only complaint so far is that arty farty aluminium keyboard and the one button mighty mouse. For a developer they both suck in terms of usability and ergonomics. I ended up buying an older A1048 wireless keyboard with proper keys and a proper two button Logitech LX6 mouse to replace them both.

Anyway it's been a long time since I got quite so excited about a new computer. I'm looking forward to honing my Python and Ruby skills in an environment that doesn't have my usual MS crutches like VS.

This quite a handy wee tool from MS -

Bumff:

XML Notepad 2007 Home

Download from:

XML Notepad 2007 Download

Attempting to use aerosol furniture polish as an air freshener in your linoleum floored kitchen...my back hurts...nuff said.

Update: Cats none too pleased either.

This film is so bad that after 20 minutes of watching it my eyes fell out.

Absolutely no redeeming features, not even funny in it's badness. I'm surprised Dan O'Bannon continues to allow himself to be involved in this franchise.

A 'my eyes, my ears!' - 0/10

All I can say is, bloody marvelous. Daniel Day-Lewis at his best. It's a longish film (2hrs 38mins) but you pretty soon become immersed in the story and at no time did I feel compelled to look at my watch.

10/10

I'll keep it simple: "I upgraded to Firefox 3 and all I got was this lousy new back button".

It's hard to believe that Carl Sagan's Cosmos is nearly 30 years old and I never got around to reading it until now, although I do remember watching the TV series as a kid. Whilst the science of astronomy and astrophysics has moved on somewhat since the book was written, Cosmos is a timeless book. Before I started to read it I thought it might feel dated and of its time, but not so. Forget Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", Cosmos is the daddy. It truly is the the Total Perspective Vortex in a handy book format.

I just took delivery of my new video card which got slotted into the new Dell. The Quadro FX1700 cards weren't cutting it for 3D work, but I knew this would be the case any way. The new card is an overclocked NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB (MSI branded). The first thought I had when I unwrapped it from the anti-static bag was "jings, this thing is huge!". This is one of these cards that takes up two bays because of all the cooling and other heat sinking gubbins that go into making high performance video cards. Anyhow, go here to read all about it if you're so inclined: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/GeForce-8800-GTS-512,review-29805.html.

The new card boosted my 'Windows Experience Index' by a good bit, which is nice:

I can now run Eve with all the premium high quality rendering bits turned up to full at 1900x1200 and the average frame rate is around 120+fps.

And without further ado, the obligitory hardware pr0n:

1. Big, isn't it?

2. Even the Buzz thinks it's a chunky looking affair, or maybe just eyeing up the leftover ketchup

3. Two slots big...

Quite amusing. I'm platform agnostic and a reasonable kinda guy when it comes to using the right tools for the job (Linux hums away processing around 2million messages a day on our mail platform) but MS pays the rent and the beer for me. Actually, you'd have to pry my lovely VS08 and .NET tools out of my cold dead hands before forcing me to switch to being a LAMP/Mono stack developer. But that doesn't mean to say that if you came along and doubled my salary I wouldn't completely rule out the blue pill.

Anyway, go have a chuckle here: http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/

[Via: Miguel de Icaza]

I don't watch copied DVD's. I like to own the original media and box. Also because most DVD's are so cheap these days why wouldn't I just buy the original? Lately, one thing that's really been seriously pissing me off big time is the way that film companies take control of my DVD player and decide how I watch the DVD. i.e. forcing me to watch their 'COPYING IS STEALING' crap and a boat load of trailers for films I've no interest in.

Let's face it, if I was watching a hooky DVD or rip, none of this crap would be present and therefore completely missing the target audience...people who are watching hooky DVDs and rips. And, if I was so inclined to duplicate, say the rental copy, then I'd rip and burn the DVD minus all this crap anyway. The other thing that uniquely grips my shit are trailers I can't easily skip past. LionsGate DVD's are particularly guilty of this trick. I can fast forward (better than nothing, but as you fast forward past each trailer, the next one needs to be manually fast forwarded and so on; still a pain in the arse) but I'm not allowed just to go straight to the main feature menu.

So the movie I'm about to watch tonight made me sit through two mandatory 'YOU ARE A THIEF' messages and then made me fast forward through 4 trailers and 2 chocolate adverts and some other crap. Some are even worse, last week one DVD (I forget which one) did this to me -

1. Twenty seconds warning me not to dare copy the DVD, with fast forward/skip/menu prohibited.
2. Twenty seconds warning me not to even think about watching it in a public place, with fast forward/skip/menu prohibited.
3. Fifteen seconds of animated logos advertising the main production company, with fast forward/skip/menu prohibited.
4. Another fifteen seconds of shiny logos advertising how clever they were for using Dolby Digital, with fast forward/skip/menu prohibited.
5. Fifteen seconds advertising another film company involved in making the movie, with fast forward/skip/menu prohibited.
6. About four minutes of trailers and other spam with no option to skip to menu other than fast forward EACH trailer, skipping/menu prohibited.
7. Approximately 15-20 seconds of animation just to show the menu before I could select 'Play'

Talk about making enemies with the customers who actually paid for your product.

So...Dear Film Companies...stop assuming I'm a thief and stop taking control of MY DVD player which I paid for with MY MONEY and let me decide, or not, whether I watch your crappy legal messages and second rate movie trailers/spam. I don't have to put up with this nonsense every time I open a book or play my CD's (though wouldn't the music biz love that eh?). I'm not stupid and I know the book is protected by copyright, but I don't have to remind myself every time by re-reading the copyright page each time I pick it up, so why inflict this crap on me when watching a DVD. Yeah ok I could get the player chipped and made region free, blah, blah, blah, but why should I resort to invalidating my warranty just to be able to have the freedom to decide that today I want to watch the film now, and not after ten minutes of threats and unwanted DVD spam.

Yay! Re-sharper 4 just shipped (in the last hour by the looks of it, their blog entry says 10th of June and it's still the 9th) after the shortest Beta/RC period I think I've seen ever. Finally, support for all the clever new C#3.0 bits.

For the past week or so in my spare time I've been trying to get my head around DI and IoC. Last night the light flickered on and stayed on thanks to this series of articles by Simone Busoli on dotnetslackers:

http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/designpatterns/InversionOfControlAndDependencyInjectionWithCastleWindsorContainerPart1.aspx
http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/designpatterns/InversionOfControlAndDependencyInjectionWithCastleWindsorContainerPart2.aspx
http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/designpatterns/InversionOfControlAndDependencyInjectionWithCastleWindsorContainerPart3.aspx
http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/designpatterns/InversionOfControlAndDependencyInjectionWithCastleWindsorContainerPart4.aspx

Although the articles focus on the Castle Windsor container, the principles apply to containers such as Microsoft's own Unity container.

So I succumbed to peer pressure (or something like that) and got me a Twitter account. I'm still not sure I get the whole 'micro-blogging' thing but I'll give it a go. So if you fancy tuning in and finding out when I've gone to the bathroom, scratched my arse or wiped my nose then get it hot off the press from here: http://twitter.com/cosmicklev.