Random thoughts and collisions

Visual Studio : Showing the active file in the Solution Explorer tree

2012-02-08T14:44:00.000+13:00

So there I was doing some consultancy work on site and I noticed that when you click through the open files in the file bar on the top, their Visual Studio tracks the active file in the tree.

Something I've always thought would be really useful.

Turns out the way to do this is via:

Tools / Options / Projects and Solutions / General / Click "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer".

WTF isn't this the default?

Enjoy!

Stackoverflow : The big 100 badges

2012-02-08T09:10:00.000+13:00

Another of my goals - getting 100 badges on stackoverflow.

Enjoy!

c# : Nullable DateTime

2012-01-26T07:43:00.000+13:00

So there I was trying to convert a nullable date time "DateTime?" to DateTime.

Then I got the error:

"Cannot implicitly convert type 'System.DateTime?' to 'System.DateTime'. An explicit conversion exists (are you missing a cast?)"

stackoverflow to the rescue and you need to use the null-coalescing operator.

So the code ended up like:

DateTime x = DateTime y ?? DateTime.Now;

Love those "??".

Aside: When I tried to find the article again for this blog, found that searching Google for "??" is an interesting exercise.

Enjoy!

C# : Counting "rows" in an XML structutre

2011-12-22T06:42:00.001+13:00

Working on a system that returns an XML structure as a string.

The structure looks like:

Table
Row
Info1/
Info2/
...
/Row
/Table

I needed to find out how many rows there were.

Mr. Google to the rescue and the solution is:

XmlDocument readTable = new XmlDocument();

readTable.LoadXml(stringXml);
int rowCount = readTable.SelectNodes("Table/Row").Count;

Refer XPath Examples for the syntax of more kinds of searches you can do.

Enjoy!

ASP : The Web Form equivalent of MessageBox

2011-12-02T10:55:00.001+13:00

When you are writing a Windows application, the ubiquitous MessageBox is extremely useful for popping up a quick debug message but it’s not available for ASP.NET Web Forms.

In such cases, use:

Response.Write("<script language='javascript'>alert('Your message');</script>");

Enjoy!

ADFS : Display exceptions

2011-11-30T09:28:00.001+13:00

There's a neat feature in ADFS in the web.config that displays exceptions on the error page which I find a MAJOR help when I'm configuring stuff.

Uncomment this piece:

!-- Display the exception message on the error page. Uncomment this, or add the key below to your
app settings if you want to see the exception message. The exception messages are localized in the
language of the server.--

add key="displayExceptions"

The web.config you need is here:

C:\inetpub\adfs\ls

So I changed the code in FormsSignIn to use an exception called exp instead of ex resulting in the error below.

Enjoy!

ADFS : The "All Time" double!

2011-11-24T14:43:00.001+13:00

Over on stackoverflow:

And now the pressure is really on ...

Enjoy!

Visual Studio : Web deploy - Files\IIS\Microsoft was unexpected at this time

2011-11-24T08:45:00.001+13:00

Built a project using the standard VS 2010 SP1 - Right click on the project - Build Deployment Package.

Then tried to deploy it via:

xxx.deploy.cmd /T

The /T does a whatif - always a good idea to check first!

Then run the following when you are happy:

xxx.deploy.cmd /Y

Got the error - "Files\IIS\Microsoft was unexpected at this time". WTF?

First off when you set the environment variable as per the txt file:

set MSDeployPath="C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V2\"

Do NOT put the quotes in and remove the end \ i.e.

set MSDeployPath=C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V2

What the script does is search for this variable and if it's missing, it tries to find the path in the registry via this code:

if "%MSDeployPath%" == "" (

for /F "usebackq tokens=1,2,*" %%h in (`reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IIS Extensions\MSDeploy" /s ^
findstr -i "InstallPath"`) do (

if /I "%%h" == "InstallPath" (

if /I "%%i" == "REG_SZ" (

if not "%%j" == "" (

if "%%~dpj" == "%%j" (

set MSDeployPath=%%j

))))))

I have Web Deploy V2 deployed and I don't have such a registry entry? It's this piece of script that produces the error. Just comment it out and all will be sweetness and light.

Enjoy!

WIF : The FederatedPassiveSignInStatus Control

2011-11-22T13:46:00.001+13:00

Doing some WIF development and wanted to sign out the user completely. So I dragged the control from the Toolbox on VS 2010 and then tested it.

WTF - it doesn't do anything.

I set the SignOut action to FederatedPassiveSignOut and had an url for the SignOutPageUrl.

Then I noticed that I'd actually added the control to the Site.Master page so that it would appear on every page on the site. Hmm - but that's not actually a page.

So I removed it and added it to my Home page. Works like a dream.

This may help someone else in the same predicament.

Passive Authentication for ASP.NET with WIF has a good description of SingleSignOut.

Makes the point:

"In more complex scenarios, the same clean-up request should be sent to any other STS involved in the federated session. To that end, the STS would have to have prior knowledge of the clean-up URI for each RP and STS. To support single sign-out, your RPs should be able to process these clean-up requests. Both the FAM and the FederatedPassiveSignInStatus control support this. If you’re using the FAM, the clean-up request can be posted to any URI at the RP and the FAM will process the request and clean up any session cookies. If you’re using the FederatedPassiveSignInStatus control, the clean-up request must be posted to a page that contains the control."

Enjoy!

ADFS : Choosing the certificate name

2011-11-22T13:37:00.001+13:00

ADFS uses three certificates:

Service communications for encrypting the message
Token-decrypting for "encrypting" the token
Token-signing for signing the token

The service communications certificate is essentially the SSL certificate that you have configured for the SSL session on the IIS that hosts ADFS. (Yes - folks - it is basically an IIS site - look for it under \inetpub\adfs\ls).

When you configure the certificate for SSL, you need to give it the full name of the site e.g. "contuso.co.uk". Don't just give it the name "contuso". If you do, ADFS will reject it when you install ADFS and will ask for a certificate that has "dots" in it.

Actually, the real error is "ADFS requires full name for certificate".

Just saying.

Enjoy!

Stackoverflow : Top of the tag heap

2011-11-17T12:39:00.001+13:00

One of my goals was to get to the top of the "Top Answerers" for a Tag category in stackoverflow and I finally managed to achieve that ...

Problem is: It's more more difficult to stay at the top than get there!

Enjoy!

C# : Parsing dates

2011-11-11T08:34:00.001+13:00

Dates are a PIA – no matter what language.

Found a neat way to do the validation e.g. the d/m/yyyy vs. d/mm/yyyy vs. dd/mm/yyyy etc.

bool validDate = DateTime.TryParseExact(txtDate.Text, 
    new[] { "dd/MM/yyyy", "d/MM/yyyy"},  
    CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out d);  

 if (!validDate)  
 {
      Error stuff
 }
 else
      Valid stuff

So you just add the valid patterns to the array and away you go!

Enjoy!

Stackoverflow : Finally, the top 5%

2011-11-10T08:59:00.001+13:00

One of my goals has been to get my stackoverflow rep. up into the top 5%.

And finally, I did it:

And now it gets really hard because I'm up against the big boys

Like this:

Hmm , nothing like a challenge :-)

Still, for the moment, I'll take being (almost) in the top 2,000 worldwide!

Enjoy!

ADFS : Problem with FedUtil

2011-11-10T08:22:00.001+13:00

I posted this problem over on the forum.

Essentially:

I have an ASP.NET application that uses FBA and calls a web service that performs CRUD operations on a back-end system i.e. the ASP.NET application is the client.

I want to claims-enable this application. I don’t want to do anything re. federation with the web service. It should just run in the background as it currently does.

When I run FedUtil, I get the message:

“ID1032: A wcf application federated to a security token service requires an application certificate. Please select a certificate for your application.”

It seems that FedUtil is trying to secure the web service and not the browser application? If I supply a certificate and then look at the resulting web.config, FedUtil hasn't done any of the usual passive profile stuff e.g. commenting out the entire current authentication:

!--Commented out by FedUtil--

!--authentication mode="Forms" forms loginUrl="~/Account/Login.aspx" timeout="2880" / /authentication

If I comment out the system.serviceModel section, FedUtil runs as expected.

I then un-comment the section and have a federated browser application with a non-federated web service.

This seems a very round-about way to achieve the objective.

Why does FedUtil only federate the web service?

How do you tell it to federate the browser functionality only? I would have thought that this was a common implementation?

Is there a better way to achieve this?

--------------------------------------------------------

So what FedUtil seems to do is scan the web.config. If it finds a system.serviceModel section, it assumes this is a WCF session (i.e. active) that you want to secure and off it goes. But in fact, it's the browser session (i.e. passive) that you want to secure.

Anyway, the above provides a work-around but it's a PIA!

Enjoy!

IIS : Default Web Site dissapears

2011-11-01T12:51:00.001+13:00

Happily working away on my Windows 7 box with IIS 7.5, deleted an old web site and somehow (no idea !!!) my "Default Web Site" in IIS 7.5 went west - gone - nixed - went to meet its maker ...!

WTF!

I found this What??? You deleted "Default Web Site" from IIS?!?! had some useful info.

In particular (as per the article), to check that it really has gone:

"First you want to really make sure that there is not a web site known as W3SVC/1. Who knows, maybe someone had simply renamed your default web site or something. Open a command prompt and type this:

c:
cd\Inetpub\AdminScripts

cscript adsutil.vbs enum w3svc/1

If it comes up with "The path requested could not be found" then sure enough, you don't have a true default website anymore. If no error then check out the "ServerComment" to know which web the machine now thinks is the default."

OK - so its really gone. You can follow the rest of the article or simply recreate another one.

I decided to re-install IIS - who knows what else was screwed up?

Control Panel / Programs / Turn Windows features on or off.

Uncheck all the IIS stuff. Then OK - it's all removed.

Then check it all back again - OK - IIS will come back and you may or may not have a "Default Web Site".

If you don't, just add one - there's nothing special about it - it's just another web site.

Start / Administrative Tools / IIS Manager

Right click Sites / Add Web Site

Call it "Default Web Site". Point to:

C:\inetpub\wwwroot

You should now have it back - along with others that may have been in that directory.

Click "Default Web Site" / "Advanced settings". Check that the ID is 1. You are good to go!

If you use ASP.NET and .NET Framework 4 - beware!

Look here: ASP.NET : Handler “PageHandlerFactory-Integrated” has a bad module “ManagedPipelineHandler” in its module list

Enjoy!

Blogger : Formating a code snippet.

2011-10-20T13:09:00.000+13:00

There's many suggestions for this.

Refer my question on stackoverflow.

However, the TechNet wiki recommends tohtml. Just paste in your code snippet, select the language, click the button, copy the resulting html and paste back into whatever.

I use the white style.

Neat!

Enjoy!

TechNet : 15 minutes of fame

2011-10-10T10:32:00.001+13:00

Over on the TechNet Wiki, I contributed an article on a Kerberos Survival Guide.

Just been notified that:

The article Kerberos Survival Guide on the TechNet Wiki has achieved its 15 minutes of fame. Congratulations!

To clarify:

As you can see here: How do I earn points?, the points you get range between 5 and 2,500 points when your article gets from 500 to 1 million page views. "15 minutes of fame" is the first milestone.

Enjoy!

ASP.NET : Handler “PageHandlerFactory-Integrated” has a bad module “ManagedPipelineHandler” in its module list

2011-10-03T13:13:00.001+13:00

I do a lot of work developing applications on my Windows 7 32 bit machine using IIS 7.5 and then migrating them to IIS 7.5 on my Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit box. Not as simple as it sounds.

Using VS 2010, my DefaultAppPool on Windows 7 uses the .NET 4.0 framework whereas it’s 2.0 on Windows 2008. So you need to make a new application pool and set it to “Integrated” and the 4.0 framework.

OK – then I get the above error. The blurb below on the error page says that the most likely cause is that:

“Managed handler is used; however, ASP.NET is not installed or is not installed completely.”

Check my installed features in IIS 7.5 and Yup – ASP.NET is installed, it has a handler etc. So WTF?

Mr. Google to the rescue.

Run a command prompt in administrative mode.

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319>aspnet_regiis.exe -i
Start installing ASP.NET (4.0.30319).
..................
Finished installing ASP.NET (4.0.30319).

Note: Your version of the framework may be different!

Notice that it installs ASP.NET even though it is already supposed to be there but it fixes the problem and all is well!

Enjoy!

WCF : WCF Test Client “The contract ‘IMetadataExchange’ in client configuration does not match the name in service contract”

2011-09-27T13:21:00.001+13:00

Playing around with WCF web services in VS 2010 and .NET Framework 4.

When I run the WCF Test Client across the web service I get the above error. The service still works but there’s an error symbol (a ! in a red circle on the LHS).

Mr. Google to the rescue and you need to change the framework config file here:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

Comment out the “endpoint” section i.e.

Problem solved.

Even though it still works, I hate these niggly errors in case I’ve screwed up

Enjoy!

ADFS : Google top 5 hits

2011-09-22T08:14:00.000+12:00

I was looking at my blog stats and noticed that my article on "Re-installing ADFS v2.0" was among my top 5 articles.

So I Googled ""Re-installing ADFS v2.0" and found that the top 5 search entries in Google all point to my blog!

Note that the last one is actually from an aggregate site that points to the same blog entry.

Looking at the stats for this article. I noticed that the biggest source of queries was from the Geneva forum, the next was from stackoverflow and Mr. Google only came in third.

The message is clear - if you want to bump up your search results, write good, solid, factually correct articles and link to them. :-)

Enjoy!

ASP : Displaying server variables

2011-09-20T08:37:00.001+12:00

Sometimes you need to know who you are logged in as.

In the claims world, it’s easy because you have the IPrincipal and IIdentity objects but if these are not available, you need to go back to first principles.

Enter stage left the server variables. These are accessed from the Request object. A simple way to enumerate then all is via the html segment below which you just whack into an asp page.

<html>
    <body>
    
        <h1>ASP Request Variables Page</h1>

        <h2>
            The current user you are logged in as is: 
            <u>
                <!-- <%=Request.ServerVariables("AUTH_USER" & "<br />") %> -->
                
                <%= response.write("AUTH_USER" & "    " &  Request.ServerVariables("AUTH_USER") & "<br /><br />") %>
            <u>
        </h2>
                
            <%
                for each x in Request.ServerVariables
                    response.write(x & "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;" &  Request.ServerVariables(x) & "<br /><br />")
                next
            %> 
            
    </body>

</html>

Enjoy!

ADFS : Selecting claim that's not in the default drop down

2011-09-12T08:59:00.001+12:00

When you want to edit the claims rules for a CP or RP in ADFS v2.0, you sometimes need to select an LDAP attribute that's not in the default drop down list.

I've always done this via a custom claim, But then I read this post: Active Directory attribute store: Require custom claim rule to access other attributes?.

The drop down actually allows free-form (not that that is obvious). In case the link disappears, this is how:

"Edit Claims Rules / Add Rule / Send LDAP Attributes as Claims".
Don't select the drop-down, just click in the white space of the grid.
If the box turns dark blue, click again.
Away you go - you can now enter any attribute you like.

This also works for the "Outgoing Claims Type" box.

Enjoy!

Stackoverflow : Another milestone

2011-09-12T08:37:00.000+12:00

Just clocked up rep. of 6000 over on Stackoverflow !!!

My stackoverflow flair:

or overall Stack Exchange flair

Enjoy!

Windows : The “hidden” tools

2011-09-08T11:07:00.001+12:00

There’s an amazing amount of tools “hidden” on your PC that you probably aren’t even aware off .

A lot of them are stored in the

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows

directory. These mainly derive from the Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4.

Browse through StartTools.htm located at:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin

There’s an amazing collection of tools there.

The actual binaries are located here:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin

To quote:

“The Windows SDK tools are designed to make it easier for you to create, deploy, and manage applications and components that target Windows and the Internet. The Windows SDK includes tools for both the .NET 3.5 SP1 and 4 Frameworks - a managed programming model - and tools for Win32® - the native (unmanaged) programming model for Windows. Many of the Windows SDK tools are listed on this page and categorized by target audience: managed, native and "common" (tools that could be used by either managed or native developers).”

Enjoy!

PowerShell : Using an IDE

2011-09-02T11:57:00.002+12:00

PowerShell is command line which means that you lose out on all the benefits that an IDE brings.

There is an in-built PowerShell IDE:

Just type “ise” from the command line

but it’s pretty basic.

Then I came across PowerGui.

It has two parts viz. an administrative console that allows you to run a collection of PowerShell scripts and a script editor that allows you to enter and run scripts. It has intellisense and a set of built in snippets. It has a debug function where you can step through the script and examine all the variables.

Very neat – and BTW it’s free.

Enjoy!