Developer's blog :)

VS2010 Tips: How to make jQuery Intellisense work for external JavaScript file

2011-02-10T15:45:00.001+02:00

Simply drag-n-drop the jQuery library from Solution Explorer to the opened external JavaScript file.

The Intellisense should work now.

Windows Azure SDK: connecting to non SQLExpress Instance

2011-01-31T22:49:00.000+02:00

When you want to build an Azure application, but you don’t have SQL Express installed the build action in Visual Studio will fail.
You will receive the following message in your output window:

Windows Azure Tools: Failed to initialize the Development Storage service. Unable to start Development Storage. Failed to start Development Storage: the SQL Server instance ‘localhost\SQLExpress’ could not be found. Please configure the SQL Server instance for Development Storage using the ‘DSInit’ utility in the Windows Azure SDK.

To fix this you open the Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt:

And enter the following text:

dsinit /sqlinstance:.

This will cause Azure to use the default instance (with no name). You can switch this to whatever you like, just replace the . (dot) by the appropriate MS SQL instance.
The result will look like this:

Good luck, happy coding.

How to Fix "PageHandlerFactory-Integrated" bad module "ManagedPipelineHandler in IIS7

2011-01-17T23:49:00.000+02:00

After setting up a new Windows 7 computer with IIS 7.5 and Visual Studio 2010, I tried to start my ASP.NET 4.0 website using the Local IIS web server. However, right off the bat I was hit with the following IIS error message:

HTTP Error 500.21 - Internal Server Error
Handler 'PageHandlerFactory-Integrated' has a bad module 'ManagedPipelineHandler' in its module list.

Apparently, the reason I was recieving the Internal Server error message was that I had installed SQL Server 2008, after installing Visual Studio 2010, and because of this it corrupted the IIS Machine level configuration files ('If you install VS2010 and then install VS2008 and VS2008 SP1, the configuration files for ASP.NET in IIS only include about 1/2 of the correct .Net 4.0 configuration sections.' read more here).

To repair this problem I ran a full silent repair of the .NET Framework 4.0. Here's how on either a 32 bit or 64 bit computer:

1. Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Run
2. In the Open textbox paste in the following line (see list of all .NET Framework version install, repair and unistall command lines here):

For silent repair on 32 bit computer with .Net Framework version 4.0.30319 use:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\SetupCache\Client\setup.exe /repair /x86 /x64 /ia64 /parameterfolder Client /q /norestart

For silent repair on 64 bit computer with .Net Framework version 4.0.30319 use:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\SetupCache\Client\setup.exe /repair /x86 /x64 /ia64 /parameterfolder Client /q /norestart

3. Click OK to start the repair
4. After, the repair ran for a few minutes, I restarted IIS 7.5, and things began to work correctly!

Hopefully, that will work for you...

Microsoft Campus Tours - Microsoft Research Part 3 - The Model Shop | Microsoft Campus Tours | Channel 9

2011-01-10T15:51:00.000+02:00

Microsoft Campus Tours - Microsoft Research Part 3 - The Model Shop | Microsoft Campus Tours | Channel 9:

7 Exciting Web Development Trends for 2011

2011-01-09T15:25:00.000+02:00

Nice article about development trends
source

P.S. Thanks to Udger for the link :)

ASP.NET Cookies Expires property is not initialized

2011-01-08T00:01:00.000+02:00

It appears that you cannot read is the cookie's expiration date and time - HttpCookie.Expires property. It turns out that when the browser sends cookie information to the server, the browser does not include the expiration information. You can read the Expires property, but it always returns a date-time value of zero.

Browser is responsible for managing cookies; the Expires property is an example of this. The primary purpose of the Expires property is to help the browser perform housekeeping on its store of cookies. From the server's perspective, the cookie either exists or it does not; the expiration is not a useful piece of information on the server side. Therefore, the browser does not provide this information when it sends the cookie. If you are concerned about the expiration date of a cookie, you must reset it.

At times you might want to modify a cookie, perhaps to change its value or to extend its expiration. (Remember that you cannot read a cookie's expiration date because the browser does not pass the expiration information to the server.)

You do not really directly change a cookie, of course. Although you can get a cookie from the Request.Cookies collection and manipulate it, the cookie itself still lives someplace on the user's hard disk. So modifying a cookie really consists of creating a new cookie with new values and then sending the cookie to the browser to overwrite the old version on the client.

The following example shows how you might change the value of a cookie that stores a count of the user's visits to the site:

Dim counter As Integer
If Request.Cookies("counter") Is Nothing Then
counter = 0
Else
counter = CInt(Request.Cookies("counter").Value)
End If
counter += 1
Response.Cookies("counter").Value = counter.ToString
Response.Cookies("counter").Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(1)

Source

Entity Framework Error 0019

2010-04-06T00:11:00.001+03:00

I’ve got this error while refactoring a project that contains an Entity Data Model. I’ve tried to google and find good solution. Here it is:

Errors:

BAModel.csdl(3,4) : error 0019: The EntityContainer name must be unique. An EntityContainer with the name 'BAEntities' is already defined.
BAModel.csdl(118,4) : error 0019: Each type name in a schema must be unique. Type name 'BAModel.Activity' was already defined.

One reason you might see this is if you have two models in a project that have the same schema. Maybe you decided to start your model over from scratch.

But in this scenario, that was not the case. It turned out that the problem was because I had changed the assembly name of the project that contained the model. The reference to the original assembly was still in the client application's BIN folder along with the new one.

Entity Framework was attempting to load the metadata files from both assemblies and detected the conflict.

Cleaning the project didn't fix the problem. The leftover assembly was still there.. I had to delete the dll and pdb file manually.

I first came across this problem and fixed it last week. But it happened again with another solution today and took me a while to remember the cause and the fix. The older I get, the more I need to rely on my blog for retaining that which my memory seems to be incapable of storing away.

Original solution

Sitecore - CryptographicException file not found

2010-04-01T15:27:00.001+03:00

I’ve got an issue with CryptographicException file not found in Sitecore. See details below

Server Error in '/' Application.

The system cannot find the file specified.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: The system cannot find the file specified.
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:
[CryptographicException: The system cannot find the file specified.
]
   System.Security.Cryptography.Utils.CreateProvHandle(CspParameters parameters, Boolean randomKeyContainer) +7715070
   System.Security.Cryptography.DSACryptoServiceProvider.ImportParameters(DSAParameters parameters) +258
   System.Security.Cryptography.DSA.FromXmlString(String xmlString) +501
   Sitecore.Nexus.Licensing.NexusLicenseApi.(String xml, Guid instance) +124
   Sitecore.Nexus.Licensing.NexusLicenseApi.GetSnapShot(Guid instance) +683
   Sitecore.SecurityModel.License.LicenseManager.GetSnapshotData(Guid instance) +47
   Sitecore.SecurityModel.License.LicenseManager.UpdateSnapshot() +70
   Sitecore.SecurityModel.License.LicenseManager.Initialize() +8
   Sitecore.Nexus.Web.HttpModule.Application_Start() +76
   Sitecore.Nexus.Web.HttpModule.Init(HttpApplication app) +435
   System.Web.HttpApplication.InitModulesCommon() +65
   System.Web.HttpApplication.InitModules() +43
   System.Web.HttpApplication.InitInternal(HttpContext context, HttpApplicationState state, MethodInfo[] handlers) +729
   System.Web.HttpApplicationFactory.GetNormalApplicationInstance(HttpContext context) +298
   System.Web.HttpApplicationFactory.GetApplicationInstance(HttpContext context) +107
   System.Web.HttpRuntime.ProcessRequestInternal(HttpWorkerRequest wr) +289
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.4927; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.4927

After hours of trying to find the solution I’ve found out that this is IIS settings issue. This issue was caused by MVC 2 installation, unfortunately it’s uninstall didn’t help.

To fix this:
1. go to IIS Manager
2. go to the application pool instance
3. click advanced settings
4. Under Process model, set Load User Profile to true
Hope this will help!
Eugene

How to Remove and Hide Blogger NavBar (Top Navigation Bar)

2010-03-26T16:47:00.001+02:00

I find this Navigation bar on top of the blog useless for me and readers of the blog.

Unfortunately it’s not possible to hide this NavBar using blogger settings. But you can do this manually editing Html of the page and adding needed CSS class there. Here are the instructions:

On the Blogger Dashboard, click on the Layout link of the blog.

The Edit HTML page under Layout tab should be loaded. If not, go to the tab.

Search for the following line of code:

</style>

Then, add the following line of code before that line:

#navbar-iframe{ display: none !important; }

The Blogger Classic Template uses iframe to load the NavBar, and styles it with ID named navbar-iframe. The name actually also works for new Blogger Widget Template too.

Register for Visual Studio 2010 Beta Exams

2010-03-26T15:45:00.001+02:00

You are invited to take part in one or more beta exams for Visual Studio 2010 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

If you pass one of the beta exams, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration.
By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications. The following exams are a part of this beta offering.

Exam 71-511, TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 71-515, TS: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 71-513: TS: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 71-516: TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 71-518: Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 71-519: Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Availability

Registration begins: March 17, 2010

Beta exam period runs: April 5, 2010 – April 30, 2010

Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register as soon as registration opens. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered. If you register, please ensure you are committed to attend.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

Registration Information

You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
Please use the following promotional codes when registering for your chosen exam(s):

Exam Number	Beta Code
71-511	511BC
71-515	515AA
71-513	513CD
71-516	516B1
71-518	518PE
71-519	519ZS

To register in North America, please call:

•Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)

Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:

•Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp

Test Information and Support

You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.

Find exam preparation information:

Exam 70-511, TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 70-515, TS: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 70-513: TS: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 70-516: TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 70-518: Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Exam 70-519: Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Frequently Asked Questions

For Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) help and information, you may log in to the MCP Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/

or contact your Regional Service Center:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/support/worldsites.asp.

•What is a beta exam?

•Where can I learn more about the registration process?

•Where can I learn more about the beta exam invitation process?

•Where can I learn more about the new structure of Microsoft Certification?

•Who do I contact for help with this beta exam or other MCP questions?

SQL 2008 Management Tools: Can't save changes that require Recreation of Database

2010-03-09T23:36:00.001+02:00

New stupid default setting in SQL Server's Management Tools: When you design a table in a database and then try to make a change to a table structure that requires the table to be recreated, the management tools will not allow you to save the changes. Instead you'll be greeted by this friendly dialog:

Notice that there's no option to save the changes - it's a hard rule that is applied upon saving and you can get past this other than back out of the dialog.

My first thought here is "Crap! Now what?" and off I go searching for an option to turn this off. Eventually I find a solution after a quick search online. As it turns out it's just an annoying configuration default setting that can be easily changed, but if you're like me and you spend a while searching around the Management Tools and finding nothing initially, I ended up eventually backing out of my initial database changes and losing a bit of work in the process. It wasn't until a bit later that I found the setting to change.

Hopefully you'll find this entry before you back out of database changes - you can get out of the above dialog, make the settings change and then still go ahead and save changes to your database.

The fix is: Go to Tools | Options | Designers | Tables and Designers and uncheck the Prevent Saving Changes that require table re-creation option:

and that does the trick.

This is a pretty harsh change IMHO. While I think it's a good idea that the tools now detect table recreation changes and can notify you, I think the better option by far would have been to pop up that initial dialog with a warning message AND provide an option on the buttons to either go forward or abort. Instead this arcane switch is going to cause some pause for most people familiar with the old tool behavior. It's not like this option is easy to find - I looked in the database options before I finally found it in the global tool options.

As it is, reverting back to the 'old' behavior now doesn't let you know that a table recreate is required either, so the behavior now is the same as was with the old tools. Here Microsoft added some useful functionality and then UI fails to expose it intelligently...

Source

Enable the Secret "How-To Geek" Mode in Windows 7

2010-01-05T19:51:00.002+02:00

We haven’t told anybody before, but Windows has a hidden “How-To Geek Mode” that you can enable which gives you access to every Control Panel tool on a single page—and we’ve documented the secret method for you here.

Update: Do not use this on Vista. If you did, you can use Ctrl+Shift+Esc to start task manager, File \ Run and open a command prompt with cmd.exe, and then use the rmdir command to get rid of the folder.

To activate the secret How-To Geek mode, right-click on the desktop, choose New –> Folder, and then give it this name:

How-To Geek.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Once you’ve done so, you’ll have activated the secret mode, and the icon will change…

Double-click on the icon, and now you can use the How-To Geek mode, which lists out every single Control Panel tool on a single page.

At this point you might notice why this is a stupid geek trick—it’s much easier to use the default Control Panel than navigating through a massive list, and anybody that really calls themselves a geek will be using the Start Menu or Control Panel search box anyway.

In case you were wondering, this is the same as that silly “God Mode” trick that everybody else is writing about. For more on why it’s pointless, see Ed Bott’s post on the subject.

Alright, So It’s Not Really a Secret How-To Geek Mode

Sadly, this is nothing more than a stupid geek trick using a technique that isn’t widely known—Windows uses GUIDs (Globally Unique Identifiers) behind the scenes for every single object, component, etc. And when you create a new folder with an extension that is a GUID recognized by Windows, it’s going to launch whatever is listed in the registry for that GUID.

You can see for yourself by heading into regedit.exe and searching for {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} under the HKCR \ CLSID section. You’ll see on the right-hand pane that it’s the “All Tasks” view of the Control Panel, which you can’t normally see from the UI.

You can use this same technique for other Windows objects by doing some digging around in the registry… for instance, if you were to search under HKCR \ CLSID for “Recycle Bin”, you’d eventually come across the right key—the one on the left-hand side here:

So if you created a folder with the name “The Geek Knows Deleted Files.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}”, you’d end up with this icon, clearly from the Recycle Bin.

And it’s even a fully functional Recycle Bin… just right-click and you’ll see the menu:

So here’s the quick list of the ones I felt like digging up, but I’m sure there’s more things you can launch if you really felt like it.

Recycle Bin: {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

My Computer: {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Network Connections: {7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}

User Accounts: {60632754-c523-4b62-b45c-4172da012619}

Libraries: {031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}

To use any of them, simply create a new folder with the syntax AnyTextHere.{GUID}

Create Shortcuts to GUIDs

Since the GUID points to a Windows object launched by Windows Explorer, you can also create shortcuts and launch them directly from explorer.exe instead of creating the folder. For instance, if you wanted to create a shortcut to My Computer, you could paste in the following as the location for a new shortcut:

explorer ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

And just like that, you’d have a shortcut to My Computer, which you can customize with a different icon, and a shortcut key if you so choose.

Yeah, it’s a stupid geek trick, but it’s always fun to learn new things.

Note: The Control Panel’s All Items hack and the Libraries hack will probably only work in Windows 7. The others should work in any version of Windows.

Source

How to use standard FileUpload in AJAX-enabled web applications

2009-11-05T21:43:00.001+02:00

I would like to note that this article is not about the ability to upload files to the server without the postback. There are a lot of articles on this topic, just type "AJAX FileUpload" in any search engine and you'll get many examples. However with AJAX they actually have little in common, because the XMLHttpRequest does not support asynchronous uploading of files to the server, they are rather a variety of imitations, for example, using hidden IFRAME element. Nevertheless I want to emphasize that the article is not about that but about the standard FileUpload control.

There are two problems you might encounter when using it on UpdatePanel.

Problem 1
If the postback is caused by a control which lies on the UpdatePanel, the FileUpload is always empty when it come to the server, regardless whether a file has been selected or not.
Example:

<asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel1" runat=server>
  <ContentTemplate>
     <asp:FileUpload ID="FileUpload1" runat=server />
     <asp:Button ID="btnUpload" runat=server Text="Upload" OnClick="btnUpload_Click"/>
  </ContentTemplate>
</asp:UpdatePanel>

Solution

As XMLHttpRequest does not allow to send files asynchronously, they have to be submitted in a common manner. This problem is well described around, it is solved by registration of the control that has to submit the form as a postback trigger (in the above example it is btnUpload button).

<asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel1" runat=server>
  <ContentTemplate>
     <asp:FileUpload ID="FileUpload1" runat=server />
     <asp:Button ID="btnUpload" runat=server Text="Upload 2" OnClick="btnUpload_Click"/>
  </ContentTemplate>
  <Triggers>
      <asp:PostBackTrigger ControlID="btnUpload" />
  </Triggers>
</asp:UpdatePanel>

Problem 2

FileUpload does not work if it is loaded not on the initial page load but appears only after asynchronous update of the page part.

Example (pnlUpload panel is invisible in the beginning and is shown after clicking on btnShowFileUpload button):

<asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel1" runat=server>
   <ContentTemplate>
        <asp:Button ID="btnShowFileUpload" runat=server Text="Show File Upload" OnClick="btnShowFileUpload_Click"/>
        <asp:Panel ID="pnlUpload" runat=server Visible="False">
           <asp:FileUpload ID="FileUpload1" runat=server />
           <asp:Button ID="btnUpload" runat=server Text="Upload" OnClick="btnUpload_Click"/>
       </asp:Panel>
   </ContentTemplate>
   <Triggers>
        <asp:PostBackTrigger ControlID="btnUpload" />
   </Triggers>
</asp:UpdatePanel>

.......................

protected void btnShowFileUpload_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    pnlUpload.Visible = true;
}

Solution

The problem is caused by the requirement that for the normal work of FileUpload the form should have enctype="multipart/form-data". Usually, it is set in overriden OnPreRender method of FileUpload control.

protected internal override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
{
    base.OnPreRender(e);
    HtmlForm form = this.Page.Form;
    if ((form != null) && (form.Enctype.Length == 0))
    {
        form.Enctype = "multipart/form-data";
    }
}

Although during asynchronous postback this code is also executed but the form is not updated. That is why it is required to set the form content type explicitly during the first page load, for example, in the Page_Load event handler of the page or a control where FileUpload is placed.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!IsPostBack)
        this.Page.Form.Enctype = "multipart/form-data";
}

In case if this task is repeated in a few places you may do a simple control derived from FileUpload with overriden OnLoad method and use it.

public class CustomFileUpload : FileUpload
{
	protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
	{
	    base.OnLoad(e);

	    if (!Page.IsPostBack)
	        this.Page.Form.Enctype = "multipart/form-data";
	}
}

Source article

Async FileUpload control for AJAX pages

2009-10-19T01:31:00.004+03:00

With the new release of Ajax Control Toolkit (v 3.0.30930) released specifically for .NET 3.5 SP1 (with Visual Studio 2008 SP1), there are couple of new controls. One of them is the AsyncFileUpload control.

Thanks to the codeplex community which keeps getting better and better with time, the Ajax Control Toolkit has grown into one of our largest community contributed controls for ASP.NET with about 43 controls that help in accomplishing rich user experiences in ASP.NET Websites.

The AsyncFileUpload is one simple way of accomplishing what I had written earlier using PostbackTrigger, the regular FileUpload control etc., To be able to use the AsyncFileUpload Control, you must have the latest version of AjaxControlToolkit installed. The other pre-requisites are obviously NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (or the free Visual Web Developer Express Edition)

You can download the pre-requisites from the respective links above. For downloading the AjaxControlToolkit, visit the CodePlex site. You can download just the binary files or the Source files as well, if you require to modify. The Script Files is useful if you want to just work with the client side scripts and not use the server controls.

Once you have downloaded, you would need to add them to Visual Studio or VWD.

1. Open Visual Studio and create a new webapplication or website. Click to open the ToolBox

2. Right Click and select “Add Tab”

3. Provide a name say “Ajax Control Toolkit”

4. Right Click the newly created tab and select “Choose Items”

5. Click on the “Browse” button in the file dialog that opens and browse to the place where you downloaded the AjaxControlToolkit binaries

6. Typically I would put them under C:\Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET for consistency.

7. Select the AjaxControlToolkit.dll and it would list all the new controls.

8. Click “Ok” to add all the controls.

9. You should now see under the newly created toolbox tab these controls.

Once you are done with above, create a simple Default.aspx page in the application you created and drop the Script Manager control into your webform. Next add an UpdatePanel with ContentTemplate. Inside the ContentTemplate, add the AsyncFileUpload control into the webform as well as a button and 2 labels for the uploading and displaying messages respectively. The markup looks something like below

Also, you can see that I have added an asp:Image pointing to a spin image that is specified as the ID for ThrobberID in the AsyncFileUpload definition. This is optional but nice to have since this would display the throbber icon while uploading takes time.

Once you are done, you would need to define the action in the codebehind or in the script

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
      {
          Label2.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString();
      }

      protected void btnUpload_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
      {
          AsyncFileUpload1.SaveAs(Server.MapPath((AsyncFileUpload1.FileName)));
          Label1.Text = "You uploaded " + AsyncFileUpload1.FileName;
      }

Notice, the Label in the Page_Load event is just to indicate that indeed the operation happened asynchronously since the time that is displayed initially doesn’t change once you click on Upload button.

Try running this and you will find that the whole operation happens asynchronously without a full page reload. Note that, you would need to still put the AsyncFileUpload control inside UpdatPanel for this behaviour. Otherwise, it would behave like a regular postback control

How To: Change Instance Name Of SQL Server

2009-09-23T16:31:00.001+03:00

Recently I change the network name of one of my servers at work, because the box changed its job from a virtual machine server to the database server. Everything was going great until I decided to setup the server for replication and received the following error message.

New Publication Wizard
——————————

SQL Server replication requires the actual server name to make a connection to the server. Connections through a server alias, IP address, or any other alternate name are not supported. Specify the actual server name, ‘old_name’. (Replication.Utilities)

——————————
OK
——————————

So with a little hunting and SQL queries I found out that SQL Server doesn’t use the network name, it only excepts that as an alias. My SQL Server instance was still named “old_name”. I found that out by running these two queries:

sp_helpserver
select @@servername

sp_helpserver select @@servername

So in order to get the network name and the SQL Server instance name back in sync I had do these steps:

Run this in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio:
1. sp_dropserver 'old_name'
2. go
3. sp_addserver 'new_name','local'
4. go
```
sp_dropserver 'old_name' go sp_addserver 'new_name','local' go
```
Restart SQL Server service. I prefer the command prompt for this, but you can just as easily do it in Services under the Control Panel
net stop mssqlserver
net start mssqlserver

Then after that is done run this again, to make sure everything is changed:

sp_helpserver
select @@servername

sp_helpserver select @@servername

I don’t understand why SQL Server uses it’s own name versus the network name, might be due to the fact you can have multiple SQL Server instances install on one machine. It wasn’t too hard to change and probably stems from the days when SQL Server was known as Sybase, all in all, I learned something new and it only took 30 minutes of my day to fine the answer.

From: Source

Excel TIP: New lines in an Excel cell

2009-07-24T17:07:00.001+03:00

I just wanted to find out how to enter a new line in an Excel cell.

Answer is to use Alt+Enter to create a new line. Additionally when you do that, Excel automatically enables text wrap for the cell.

Summary
----------
Alt+Enter : Enter new line in a cell
F2: Edit a cell

Resolving “A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server…”

2009-06-29T15:54:00.002+03:00

SQL Server 2005 Error:“A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified) ”
Things to check:1. Make sure your database engine is configured to accept remote connections• Start > All Programs > SQL Server 2005 > Configuration Tools > SQL Server Surface Area Configuration• Click on Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections• Select the instance that is having a problem > Database Engine > Remote Connections• Enable local and remote connections• Restart instance
2. Check the SQL Server service account• If you are not using a domain account as a service account (for example if you are using NETWORK SERVICE), you may want to switch this first before proceeding
3. If you are using a named SQL Server instance, make sure you are using that instance name in your connection strings in your ASweb P.NET application• Usually the format needed to specify the database server is machinename\instancename• Check your connection string as well

<connectionStrings>

</connectionStrings>

4.You may need to create an exception on the firewall for the SQL Server instance and port you are using• Start > Run > Firewall.cpl• Click on exceptions tab• Add the sqlservr.exe (typically located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.x\MSSQL\Binn), and port (default is 1433)• Check your connection string as well
5. If you are using a named SQL Server instance, make sure you are using that instance name in your connection strings
6. Check SQLBrowser; check that it is running. You may also need to create an exception in your firewall for SQLBrowser.
7. Check that you have connectivity to the SQL Server. Note what you are using to connect: machine name, domain name or IP address? Use this when checking connectivity. For example if you are using myserver• Start > Run > cmd•netstat -ano findstr 1433•telnet myserver 1433•ping -a myserver
Check what ports are IP addresses are being returned.
Alternative:If you still can’t get any connection, you may want to create a SQL account on the server, a corresponding SQL user on the database in question, and just use this username/password combo in your web application.

Source: http://www.sqlmusings.com/2009/03/11/resolving-a-network-related-or-instance-specific-error-occurred-while-establishing-a-connection-to-sql-server/

How to convert NameValueCollection to a (Query) String

2009-05-27T22:44:00.001+03:00

Most ASP.NET developers know that you can get a key/value pair string from the Request.QueryString object (via the .ToString() method). However that functionality isn’t the same for a generic NameValueCollection object (of which Request.QueryString is derived from).

So how do you take a NameValueCollection object and get a nicely formatted key/value pair string? (i.e. “key1=value1&key2=value2“) … Here’s a method I wrote a while ago:

view plain copy to clipboard print ?

/// <summary>
/// Constructs a QueryString (string).
/// Consider this method to be the opposite of "System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString"
/// </summary>
/// <param name="nvc">NameValueCollection</param>
/// <returns>String</returns>
public static String ConstructQueryString(NameValueCollection parameters)
{
List<String> items = new List<String>();
foreach (String name in parameters)
items.Add(String.Concat(name, "=", System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(parameters[name])));
return String.Join("&", items.ToArray());
}

/// <summary>

/// Constructs a QueryString (string).
/// Consider this method to be the opposite of "System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString"
/// </summary>
/// <param name="nvc">NameValueCollection</param>
/// <returns>String</returns>
public static String ConstructQueryString(NameValueCollection parameters)
{
List<String> items = new List<String>();

foreach (String name in parameters)
 items.Add(String.Concat(name, "=", System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(parameters[name])));

return String.Join("&", items.ToArray());
}

Just in case you didn’t know about the System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString method, it’s a quick way of converting a query (key/value pairs) string back into a NameValueCollection.

From : http://blog.leekelleher.com/2008/06/06/how-to-convert-namevaluecollection-to-a-query-string/

Server Error in '/' Application ... A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected ...

2008-12-30T11:52:00.003+02:00

Symptom:

When entering a value with angled brackets into a text box on a .NET application the following error is generated in the browser:

Server Error in '/' Application.

A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (TextBoxN="...")

Cause

The .NET framework is throwing up an error because it detected something in the entered text which looks like an HTML statement. The text doesn't need to contain valid HTML, just anything with opening and closing angled brackets ("<...>").

The reason behind the error is as a security precaution. Developers need to be aware that users might try to inject HTML (or even a script) into a text box which may affect how the form is rendered. For further details see www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/request-validation/.

This checking was not performed in the .NET 1.0 framework and was introduced with the .NET 1.1 framework.

Remedy:

The remedy is in two parts and you MUST action both:

To disable request validation on a page add the following directive to the existing "page" directive in the file - you will need to switch to the HTML view for this:

ValidateRequest="false"

for example if you already have:

<%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" Codebehind="MyForm.aspx.vb" Inherits="Proj.MyForm"%>

then this should become:

<%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" Codebehind="MyForm.aspx.vb" Inherits="Proj.MyForm" ValidateRequest="false"%>

Alternately, you can globally turn request validation off (but in which case be sure to implement item two below). To globally turn request validation off add the following to your web.config file:

this should go within the section. This will turn off request validation for every page in your application.

Warning

With request validation turned off, users will be able to enter html into text boxes on the page. For example entering:

TalertT('Oops!')

will be rendered by the browser (when the form is updated and the contents redisplayed) as JavaScript and a message box will appear with the message "Oops!". This is generally considered to be undesirable!

Unless you actually need users to be able to enter HTML you must convert the string to its html encoding equivalent - basically this means that certain characters (like "<") are converted to codes (so "<" is converted to "<"). To perform this conversion use HttpUtility.HtmlEncode, for example:
MyLabel.Text := HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(MyTextBox.Text);

You only need to consider this for any text that will be rendered in the browser.

These notes are believed to be correct for .NET 1.1 and .NET 2, and may apply to other versions as well.

From: http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian/mswinswdev/ms_vbnet_server_error_potentially_dangerous.htm

Debugging client JavaScript in VS 2005

2008-12-19T18:29:00.000+02:00

Client Java Script is one of the most important things in web development but not the best and easiest to develop. Building of bigger and more complicated scripts, especially using DOM model or form field values can cause a lot of frustration and head pain. Moreover, JavaScript debugging is not easy and obvious as should be. But there is a hope.

One of less known features of Visual Studio 2005 is Script Explorer, hidden in Debug menu where appears only when the debugger is running. This great tool allows easily debug JavaScripts.

Before start, we should ensure that client script debugging is not disabled in IE as it is by default. Suitable options are located on Advanced tab of Internet Options where both script debugging checkboxes should be unchecked.

We can come back to Script Explorer. As it was written before, it appears only while the debugger is working. So after starting project we can go do Debug->Windows where should be Script Explorer. Sometimes, don’t know why, it doesn’t so in this case we have to find it manually. Staying in debug mode right click on tool bar and go into Customize. Then select Debug in Categories on the left side of window and find Script Explorer on the right. Just drag it to Debugging toolbar.

After opening Script Explorer panel we will se the tree of active JavaScripts. At the first level are scripts that are imported from external sources or embedded in the page. There are also auto-generated scripts like postback scripts as well. By double-clicking on the selected script it will open in the main window.

At this moment, we can debug it in well known way using breakpoints, steps, Watch and QuickWatch, just like in the server side, including context variable browsing.

Breakpoints can also be set up in external *.js files before project will be loaded. Then, after loading project, the breakpoint will be activated by debugger. Note, that it is only possible to *.js files not for scripts embedded in pages. These scripts are available for debugging only after loading page.

Taken from:
http://www.developerfusion.com/code/5918/debugging-client-javascript-in-vs-2005/

How to delete a row in the DataTable (solution) .

2008-11-25T16:27:00.000+02:00

How to delete a row in the DataTable (solution)

The VS .NET / ADO .NET documentation is very poor in the parts about deleting rows from the table. It should tell you the following, but it doesn't.

Let's say you want to delete a record. You read the help, and you write something like:

row.Delete();
table.AcceptChanges();

or, you write something like:

table.Rows.RemoveAt(i);

which is equivalent to the code above.

All is good and well. You have deleted the row from the data table. Now, you want to update the physical database, and you call the Update method.

BZZZZZZZT! Wrong answer! The database rows won't be deleted at all!

What you need to do (and the MS documentation doesn't tell you - just check in the parts about RemoveAt, Delete, Update - it is nowhere to be found) is:

row.Delete(); // mark row for deletion

...Update(); // update the physical database

table.AcceptChanges(); // remove the rows marked for deletion from the dataset

Microsoft, please update your documentation! You could easily put this in the help pages for Delete(), RemoveAt(), or Update()!

Thank you very much!

taken from: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/dotnetquestions/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1950

How do I – Solve the “Could not create type WebService.Name” error when trying to deploying a web service?

2008-08-20T22:42:00.003+03:00

OK, so you wrote a web service and you may even have tested it and everything worked fine. So the you did some "cleanup" and tried to deploy the web service. It compiles and deploys just fine, but when you try to invoke and hit the service you are presented with the following error:

Server Error in '/' Application.

Parser Error

Description: An error occurred during the parsing of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific parse error details and modify your source file appropriately.
Parser Error Message: Could not create type 'WebServices.Candidates'.
Source Error:

Line 1: <%@ WebService Language="C#" CodeBehind="Candidates.asmx.cs" Class="WebServices.Candidates" %>

Source File: /Candidates.asmx Line: 1

So just how do you solve this problem?

Here's my checklist of things to check when having trouble deploying web services:

Check that IIS is using ASP.NET 2.0.
1. Begin by starting up the Internet Information Services manager.
2. Expand "Web Sites".
3. Expand your web site e.g. "Default Web Site".
4. Locate the Virtual Directory to which the web service was deployed and right click it.
1. On the popup menu, click "Properties".
2. On the Properties window, select the "ASP.NET" tab.
3. Ensure that the APS.NET Version is set to 2.0.x and not 1.1.x.
4. If it is set to 1.1.x, set it to 2.0.x and retry your web service.
Ensure your Visual Studio build properties are set correctly.
1. Locate the .asmx file in your Solution Explorer pane and right click it.
1. On the popup menu, click "Properties".
2. Ensure that the Build Action is set to "Content".
1. Locate the code behind (.cs or .vb) file in the Solution Explorer and right click it.
1. On the popup menu, click "Properties".
2. Ensure the Build Action is set to "Compile".
1. If either of these weren't set correctly, make the correction, recompile, redeploy and retest.
Ensure ASP.NET 2.0 is an Allowed web services extension.
1. Open the IIS Manager.
2. Expand your computer.
3. Click the "Web Service Extensions" option.
4. In the right hand pane, locate the "ASP.NET v2.0.x" entry and ensure that its Status is "Allowed". If it is not allowed, the "Allow" button on the left will be enabled. Click it to change the setting.
5. If it was not allowed, correct the setting and retry your service.
Check for the WebMethod attribute.
1. Review your code and ensure that you have the [WebMethod] attribute set for all web methods in the service. This does not mean that all methods have to be web methods, but the ones you are trying to consume should have this attribute in its declaration.
Ensure the .asmx and code behind file match definitions.
1. Open your code behind (.cs or .vb) file.
2. Look at the web service declaration at the top.
1. In our example, ensure that #2 and #3 match. If they don't, correct the problem.
2. Next note the namespace at #1.
3. Now open the .asmx file. This can usually be done by double clicking it in the Solution Explorer, but if you're not able to get it to open through the IDE, open Windows Explorer, navigate to the file, right click it and select Open in Visual Studio to work around the problem.
4. Now look at the code.
1. Note the value of Class in this case is "WebServices.Candidates". The Class value should be the full namespace value as well as the class name. Given our code behind file's values, in this case, the Class value should have been "Crowe.PartnerNomination.WebServices.Candidates", but instead it is just "WebServices.Candidates". This is a common issue when reworking already written web services into a namespace hierarchy. For some reason the .asmx file does not always reflect the changes made which then causes the error message at the beginning of this post.
2. Change the Class value, recompile, redeploy and retest.
Taken from: http://www.cjvandyk.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=133

Technorati Tags: IIS,ASP.NET,WebService,Solve,Could not,create,type,error,deployment

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office, CommandBarButton FaceId Property

2008-08-05T22:51:00.002+03:00

From http://www.kebabshopblues.co.uk/2007/01/04/visual-studio-2005-tools-for-office-commandbarbutton-faceid-property/
I recently started experimenting with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) 2003. This entry is a technical .Net / VS2005 / VSTO blog and will probably not be of interest unless you use these tools yourself.

Yuck. Office applications allow many configuration / add-in options programmatically which are quite impressive, but do not sit well with other .Net development tools. For example, in Forms development, if we want to create a Button on a form programmatically, we declare a new Button(). In VSTO, we declare a new CommandBar, and then have to use the CommandBar.Add() method to create a new button on that toolbar.

One of the first things that I wanted to achieve - after adding a basic toolbar to Outlook 2003, was to add buttons with icons. It was frustrating that this was a topic that seemed to be omitted from the book ‘Visual Studio Tools for Office: Using C# with Excel, Word, Outlook, and Infopath’ (Carter and Lippert), and it almost entirely eluded me as to how to do it. There was the CommandBarButton.FaceId property, useful if you wanted a preset icon on your button (but no apparent documentation of what numbers should be used for which icons). Then there were the Picture and Mask properties that appeared to have relevance to this task, but I could not fathom how to use them. Web searches demonstrated some approaches, even on MSDN, that required the use of the clipboard to load an image; something that could muck up the user’s clipboard and therefore highly undesirable, it seemed to me.

Anyway, I finally found what I needed, on MSDN itself. This was one occasion when a generic web search with Google did not outperform Microsoft’s own site (prior poor recommendations that I had found turned out to refer to previous versions of .Net or VSTO).

But still in all my searches I failed to find documentation of the simplest way of assigning an icon to a button or menu entry, using the FaceId property. Possibly, I missed it; that would be easy in amongst the morass of documentation.

This blog documents the numbers and associated icons as discovered from using the various FaceId numbers in Outlook. I have not yet cross-checked the icon numbering with different applications. Lower down this page, I’ll comment briefly on how I got these images later in the document.

The Icons

The number to the right of the icon is the appropriate FaceId to use:

How I Made These Images

MSDN Support had a very tempting page which refers to ‘Finding FaceID Numbers for Your Microsoft Office 97 Toolbars’; but that text is not linked and does not retrieve anything on a search; though the text suggests that it (should have been) a tool to provide documentation of these FaceId’s in an Excel spreadsheet. Tempting, therefore, but fruitless (even if it referred to past versions, perhaps it might have helped?)

So, I wrote a little piece of code to create an Outlook toolbar with 104 buttons (the first 4 buttons being repeated, so there were 100 unique faceId’s), each with a FaceId and a text caption of the number used to achieve the icon. Making the Outlook window very narrow (so only the first four buttons were displayed) meant that clicking on the toolbar expansion button gave a drop-down with 100 unique buttons on. A bit of jiggery pokery with a screen-shot gave the necessary images. It was a pain to be such a manual process, but there you go; sometimes these things can’t be helped… I did decide to stop at 2999 though

Maybe my OCD will cut in soon though and compel me to find the last icon…

[Added 24/1/07: I have now added a post with FaceId’s 3000 - 3999 for your enjoyment.]

Outlook Programming: how to find the parent message for a reply or forward message.

2008-07-29T09:17:00.003+03:00

I'm currently involved in developing Outlook add-in. During that I've faced the problem how to find the parent message for a reply or forward message. The idea is that all messages in a conversation have the same ConversationTopic value, while the ConversationIndex is increased by 5 bytes with each change. Here is the sample that uses a MailItem named lastMailItem and searches the Inbox for a matching parent item.

MAPIFolder inbox = m_applicationObject.Session.GetDefaultFolder(OlDefaultFolders.olFolderInbox);
Items inboxItems = inbox.Items.Restrict("[ConversationTopic] = " + "\"" + m_lastMailItem.ConversationTopic + "\"");

string str = m_lastMailItem.ConversationIndex;
string convIndex = str.Substring(0, str.Length - 10);
foreach (MailItem item in inboxItems)
{
if (item.ConversationIndex == convIndex)
{
// Item is found, add your code here!!
break;
}
}

Hope this will help you lot's.

Resolving the issue of those using MSN Messenger (Error Code: 80072745)

2008-07-29T09:13:00.002+03:00

A lot of people are experiencing problems with MSN Messenger, especially the latest version. MSN Messenger 8, also known as Messenger Live!
I expeirienced this problem myself, relating to Error Code: 80072745. It was a pain in the ass, it became rather annoying that I could not sign in.
I kept getting the following message “We were unable to sign you in to the MSN Messenger, possibly because of a problem with your Internet connection. Please try again later. 80072745″
I began to try signing in to an online messenger service, such as http://webmessenger.msn.com, I was able to sign in fine, so blaming the server was out of the question.
If you are experiencing this problem, I sugest you try the following steps.

In my personal case the problem was is Eset NOD32 Antivirus, and I simply removed MSN from it's Web access protection list.

(Before you do the following steps, be sure that your Anti-Virus is fully updated, and you have run a full system scan for viruses/trojans.)
1: If you are using a Firewall, be sure that MSN Messenger has been granted access.
2: Clear your Internet Explorer’s Cache and Cookies. — Open Internet Explorer, click on Tools>Options. Delete Files and Delete Cookies. (If you are using something different, Mozilla Firefox, they can be found in the Privacy TAB).
3: MSN Messenger is required for “Use SSL 2.0″ and “Use SSL 3.0″ are enabled. — Open Internet Explorer, click on Tools>Options. Go to Advanced, scroll down and check them both.
4: Final step, Go to Start>Run and type in cmd and press enter. Then enter the commands below one by one, and then press enter for each command:regsvr32 softpub.dll( A message will appear, click ok. Then type in the next command, and repeat)regsvr32 wintrust.dllregsvr32 initpki.dllregsvr32 MSXML3.dll
After doing this, restart your Modem/Router, then try to sign in. If you are still unable to sign in, restart your computer.
Sometimes spyware/addware can be the problem, I recommend that you use Spybot - Search and Destroy. Click here for the Spybot website.
If you need any more information, feel free to contact me. martin@martinjknight.com
Please note that this information was taken from a well known source and was not created by me.
Here is another way of possibly resolving the problem, which was posted by internet-kaltersia. You may want to try this out if the previous information didn’t work.
Here is the crazy thing I had to do to fix this…
Quote from Raphael
Dear all if you have not heard simply add these addresses to the following file that should be opened with notepad and MSN will work.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts - (When you open the ETC folder open the HOSTS file using notepad).
insert the following addresses:65.54.239.80 messenger.hotmail.com65.54.239.80 dp.msnmessenger.skadns.net
(INSERT THEM DIRECTLY UNDER THE OTHER 2 ADDRESSES AND ALIGN THEM WITH TAB.)
Easy done … good luck.
Thank you for that additional information!

Please note that this information was taken from a well known source and was not created by me.

How to check for hidden/system files and folders.

2008-07-07T16:41:00.003+03:00

Hi,

Maybe not everybody knows how to check whether file or folder is hidden/system.
This code returns array of FileInfo and DirectoryInfo objects.

FileInfo[] info = dirInfo.GetFiles();
DirectoryInfo[] dirs = dirInfo.GetDirectories();

They both have Attributes property which is flag enum. So you can use this property to check for files attributes. Here is sample method to check whether object has hidden or system attributes:

private static bool IsNotHiddenOrSystem(FileAttributes attributes)
{
return (attributes & (FileAttributes.Hidden FileAttributes.System)) == 0;
}

Full list of file attributes can be found on MSDN site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.fileattributes.aspx

Enjoy ;)

DynamicControlsPlaceholder - A placeholder that saves its child controls

2008-07-05T20:00:00.001+03:00

Problem:

ASP.NET gives a developer the opportunity to programmatically add controls to a web form using ParentControl.Controls.Add(new Control());
However, these controls are not persisted in any way thus having to be recreated for each subsequent request.

Goal:

To create a control that behaves like a placeholder but additionally handles recreating dynamic controls on subsequent requests.

Procedure:

I have created a custom control called DynamicControlsPlaceholder that derives from Placeholder and overrides Load- and SaveViewState.
In SaveViewState, the control hierarchy is recursively traversed and the control type and ID persisted to a string
In LoadViewState the persisted information is used to recreate the control tree to the state before.

Download (V2.2):

The sourcecode is available in C# as a VS.NET project.
A ready-to-use assembly (including help file).
A demo shows the usage of this control. Sourcecode for the Demo (C#) or Sourcecode for the Demo

From: http://www.denisbauer.com/ASPNETControls/DynamicControlsPlaceholder.aspx

What's the difference between Bind and Eval

2008-07-04T15:42:00.001+03:00

Data-binding expressions are contained within <%# and %> delimiters and use the Eval and Bind functions. The Eval function is used to define one-way (read-only) binding. The Bind function is used for two-way (updatable) binding. In addition to calling Eval and Bind methods to perform data binding in a data-binding expression, you can call any publicly scoped code within the <%# and %> delimiters to execute that code and return a value during page processing.
Data-binding expressions are resolved when the DataBind method of a control or of the Page class is called. For controls such as the GridView, DetailsView, and FormView controls, data-binding expressions are resolved automatically during the control's PreRender event and you are not required to call the DataBind method explicitly.
Using the Eval Method
The Eval method evaluates late-bound data expressions in the templates of data-bound controls such as the GridView, DetailsView, and FormView controls. At run time, the Eval method calls the Eval method of the DataBinder object, referencing the current data item of the naming container. The naming container is generally the smallest part of the data-bound control that contains a whole record, such as a row in a GridView control. You can therefore use the Eval method only for binding inside templates of a data-bound control.
The Eval method takes the name of a data field and returns a string containing the value of that field from the current record in the data source. You can supply an optional second parameter to specify a format for the returned string. The string format parameter uses the syntax defined for the Format method of the String class.

Using the Bind Method
The Bind method has some similarities to the Eval method, but there are significant differences. Although you can retrieve the values of data-bound fields with the Bind method, as you can with the Eval method, the Bind method is also used when data can be modified.
In ASP.NET, data-bound controls such as the GridView, DetailsView, and FormView controls can automatically use the update, delete, and insert operations of a data source control. For example, if you have defined SQL Select, Insert, Delete, and Update statements for your data source control, using Bind in a GridView, DetailsView, or FormView control template enables the control to extract values from child controls in the template and pass them to the data source control. The data source control in turn performs the appropriate command for the database. For this reason, the Bind function is used inside the EditItemTemplate or InsertItemTemplate of a data-bound control.
The Bind method is typically used with input controls such as the TextBox control rendered by a GridView row in edit mode. When the data-bound control creates these input controls as part of its own rendering, it can extract the input values.
The Bind method takes the name of a data field to associate with the bound property.

More information about ASP.NET Page life-cycle and common events

2008-07-02T11:40:00.002+03:00

I’ve found wonderful document about ASP.NET Page lifecycle events on http://john-sheehan.com/blog. Little information about general page Life-cycle stages and events:

The whole document can be found here: http://john-sheehan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/aspnet-life-cycles-events.pdf . There is also information about Data Binding Events for Data-Bound Controls and Common Life-cycle Events.

Enjoy :)

Tooltip in ASP.NET GridView headers

2008-06-30T17:46:00.003+03:00

I was searching for the way show Tooltips for headers of ASP.NET GridView control without using javascript or using unnecessary overhead in code. And I found the way how to do it. When you define columns or your GridView you should use TemplateField instead of BoundField cause it's customizable. In TemplateField you can define HeaderTemplate and put there Label control with needed Tooltip. Here is the code:

<asp:GridView ID="GridView" DataSourceID="ObjectDataSource1" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" >
<Columns>
<asp:TemplateField SortExpression="ShareCount">
<HeaderTemplate>
<asp:Label runat="server" Text="Nr. of Stocks" ToolTip="Total number of stocks on the market"></asp:Label>
</HeaderTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<asp:Label ID="Label2" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("ShareCount") %>'></asp:Label>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>
</Columns>
</asp:GridView>

.NET Format Strings

2008-06-30T14:26:00.004+03:00

I've found great pdf document about .NET Format Strings.

Here is the sample from it.

Full document can be downloaded from John Sheehan blog :
http://john-sheehan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/msnet-formatting-strings.pdf

ASP.NET data binding essentials

2008-06-29T17:36:00.002+03:00

<%# %> Syntax

ASP.NET introduces a new declarative syntax, <%# %>. This syntax is the basis for using data binding in an .aspx page. All data binding expressions must be contained within these characters. The following list includes examples of simple data binding from multiple sources:

• Simple property (syntax for a customer):
<%# custID %>

• Collection (syntax for an order):
<asp:listbox id="List1" datasource="'<%#">' runat="server">

• Expression (syntax for a contact):
<%# ( customer.First Name + " " + customer.LastName ) %>

• Method result (syntax for the outstanding balance):
<%# GetBalance(custID) %>

In the preceding examples, the inline <%# %> tags indicate where the information from a specific data source is to be placed in the .aspx page. The following data binding example uses a TextBox Web server control: <asp:textbox id="txt" text=="<%# custID %>" runat=server />

For more information about data binding syntax, see the following .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK) documentation:
Data Binding Expression Syntax
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bda9bbfx(vs.71).aspx

WPF Beginners Guide

2008-06-27T15:39:00.003+03:00

Sacha Barber is the great man who writes lot's of the great articles about WPF. Here is the series of his articles for beginners in WPF:

WPF: A Beginner's Guide - Part 1 of n
WPF: A Beginner's Guide - Part 2 of n
WPF: A Beginner's Guide - Part 3 of n
WPF: A Beginner's Guide - Part 4 of n
WPF: A Beginner's Guide - Part 5 of n
WPF: A Beginner's Guide - Part 6 of n

I hope this will greatly help many of you and you'll get main concepts and basics of this wonderful technology. Here is his blog: Sacha Barber blog

VS 2005 Error 1: "Could not load type..."

2008-06-27T08:42:00.004+03:00

You can receive this error "Could not load type" error message in your ASP.NET Application, when you browse to .aspx page by using Visual C# .NET or running from local IIS.

SYMPTOMS

When you browse to an .aspx page, you may receive one of the following error messages:
Could not load type 'Namespace.Global'.
-or-
Could not load type 'Namespace.PageName'.

CAUSE

These errors occur if the .aspx page or the Global.asax page contains a reference to a code-behind module and if the application has not been built.

RESOLUTION

Use one of the following methods to build the application:
• Use the C# command line compiler (CSC.exe) to run the following command:
csc /t:library /r:System.web.dll /out:mydll.dll myfile.cs
• In Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, click Build on the Build menu.

NOTE: Microsoft Visual Basic .NET background compiles the project as soon as it is created. Because Visual C# .NET projects only background parse, you must explicitly build the application.

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

1. Start Visual Studio .NET.
2. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Project.
3. Click Visual C# Projects under Project Types, and then click ASP.NET Web Application under Templates.
4. Right-click WebForm1.aspx, and then click View in Browser.

Materials are taken from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306155

SQL Error "INSERT Failed" When You Update Table Referenced in an Indexed View

2008-06-25T11:00:00.002+03:00

SYMPTOMS
When you run a stored procedure or SQL INSERT statement directly, which attempts to insert a row into a table that is referenced in an indexed view, the following error may occur:
INSERT failed because the following SET options have incorrect settings: 'ARITHABORT' Furthermore, this error may occur even if "SET ARITHABORT ON" is included in the batch or stored procedure that attempts the INSERT.

CAUSE
To successfully insert a row into a table that is referenced in an indexed view, the SQL ARITHABORT configuration setting must be set to ON. Furthermore, the statement that applies this configuration setting must be executed in its own batch. Because stored procedures contain only one batch, adding the statement to the procedure does not work.

MY SOLUTION
My own solution was to rebuild stored procedures and indexed used with the table you are updating.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, add the following ADO code to your application after you open the connection to your database: MyConnection.Execute "SET ARITHABORT ON"
where MyConnection is a reference to the ADO connection object you are using to run the stored procedure that performs an INSERT or the SQL INSERT statement.

Material taken from: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305333

New Employer

2008-06-17T11:57:00.001+03:00

I've left Artfulbits Inc, and now I work for Euroland in Estonia as ASP.NET Developer.

HTTP pipeline in ASP.NET 2.0.

2008-06-01T17:08:00.000+03:00

Today I will provide you with a short reference for the steps in HTTP pipeline in ASP.NET 2.0. Some of the steps are internal and can't be subscribed by HTTP modules or global.asax:

1. Internal step to validate request. Protects against malicious attacks exploiting path canonicalization
2. Internal step to perform URL mapping (if the URL mapping feature is enabled)
3. Fire BeginRequest event
4. Fire AuthenticateRequest event
5. Fire DefaultAuthentication internal event
6. Fire PostAuthenticateRequest event
7. Fire AuthorizeRequest event
8. Fire PostAuthorizeRequest event
9. Fire ResolveRequestCache event
10. Fire PostResolveRequestCache event
11. Internal step to determine the IHttpHandler to process the current request (this is when the page compilation takes place)
12. Fire PostMapRequestHandler event
13. Fire AcquireRequestState event
14. Fire PostAcquireRequestState event
15. Fire PreRequestHandlerExecute event
16. Internal step to execute the IHttpHandler (call its ProcessRequest method) for the current request. The handler is determined at step #11
17. Fire PostRequestHandlerExecute event
18. Fire ReleaseRequestState event
19. Fire PostReleaseRequestState event
20. Internal step to perform response filtering (only if HttpResponse.Filter is installed)
21. Fire UpdateRequestCache event
22. Fire PostUpdateRequestCache event
23. Fire EndRequest event. This is the only event that is guaranteed to be fired for each request

I've found this info in Dmitryr's blog and took it from another topic, but this info will be valuable also.

ASP.NET 2.0 Directives

2008-05-26T00:23:00.000+03:00

Hi,

Today I've decided to write about ASP.NET 2.0 directives. There are 11 of them. Here is a full list of directives:

Directive	Attributes	Short description
@Assembly	Name Src	Imports assembly with given name into page or control
@Control	The same as Page has	Applied for properties setting while creating custom controls
@Implements	Interface	Specifies that page's class implements this interface
@Import	Namespace	Imports given namespace
@Master	The same as Page has	Apllied for specifying Master Page template. New in ASP.NET 2.0
@MasterType	TypeName VirtualPath	Gives strongly typed reference on class contained in Master Page. Gives opportunity to reference class properties.
OutputCache	Duration Location VaryByCustom VaryByHeader VaryByParam VaryByControl	Controls Page or Control caching. See msdn for details.
@Page	Described below	Attributes refering current Page.Used only if files with .aspx extension.
@PreviousPageType	TypeName VirtualPath	Page, which was used for user data sending. New in ASP.NET 2.0.
@Reference	Page Control	Page or Control that should be compiled with current.
@Register	Assembly Namespace Src TagName TagPrefix	Associates aliases with namespaces and class names for notation in custom server control syntax.

@Page Directive

The @Page directive enables you to specify attributes and values for an Asp.Net Page to be used when the page is parsed and compiled. Every .aspx files should include this @Page directive to execute. There are many attributes belong to this directive. We shall discuss some of the important attributes here.

Language: This attribute tells the compiler about the language being used in the code-behind. Values can represent any .NET-supported language, including VB.NET, C#, or JScript .NET.

AutoEventWireup: For every page there is an automatic way to bind the events to methods in the same .aspx file or in code behind. The default value is true.

CodeFile: Specifies the code-behid file with which the page is associated.

Title: To set the page title other than what is specified in the master page.

Culture: Specifies the culture setting of the page. If you set to auto, enables the page to automatically detect the culture required for the page.

UICulture: Specifies the UI culture setting to use for the page. Supports any valid UI culture value.

ValidateRequest: Indicates whether request validation should occur. If set to true, request validation checks all input data against a hard-coded list of potentially dangerous values. If a match occurs, an HttpRequestValidationException Class is thrown. The default is true. This feature is enabled in the machine configuration file (Machine.config). You can disable it in your application configuration file (Web.config) or on the page by setting this attribute to false.

Theme: To specify the theme for the page. This is a new feature available in Asp.Net 2.0.

SmartNavigation: Indicates the smart navigation feature of the page. When set to True, this returns the postback to current position of the page. The default value is false.

MasterPageFile: Specify the location of the MasterPage file to be used with the current Asp.Net page.

EnableViewState: Indicates whether view state is maintained across page requests. true if view state is maintained; otherwise, false. The default is true.

ErrorPage: Specifies a target URL for redirection if an unhandled page exception occurs.

Inherits: Specifies a code-behind class for the page to inherit. This can be any class derived from the Page class.

There are also other attributes which are of seldom use such as Buffer, CodePage, ClassName, EnableSessionState, Debug, Description, EnableTheming, EnableViewStateMac, TraceMode, WarningLevel, etc. Here is an example of how a @Page directive looks

How to disable Vista UAC.

2008-05-05T16:44:00.000+03:00

Hi,

I've noticed that Vista UAC turned on automatically about 2 weeks(my work PC is in domain) ago and now I can't turn it off using Control Panel - it simply doesn't turns off. UAC irritates me highly and I've started searching the solution how to kill it :) And found one very usefull. UAC still works but doesn't display any messages :-))

You just need to create 2 keys in registry, here they are:
In [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin"=dword:00000000
"EnableLUA"=dword:00000001

Or if you want to turn it off totally simply change and reboot:
"EnableLUA"=dword:00000000

You can also use msconfig to do the same:
- Start - Run - msconfig - Tools -Disable UAC

Hope this will help other people.

ASP.NET 2.0 Web service problem

2008-04-29T21:20:00.000+03:00

Today I've tried to publish my web service on aspspider.net. But I've faced the problem that I can't run the webservice method with following message: "The test form is only available for requests from the local machine". I've read some information and found out that you need to edit config file of your application and add there the following declaration to specify that an ASP.NET Web service can use HttpGet and HttpPost protocols to receive request data sent from a client and return response data.

<configuration>
<system.web>
<webServices>
<protocols>
<add name="HttpGet"/>
<add name="HttpPost"/>
</protocols>
</webServices>
</system.web>
</configuration>

Now it works perfect.

Shareware software

2008-04-17T22:15:00.000+03:00

I've just started to think about shareware software. I have some ideas of software implementation and I'll try to implement my ideas soon. The only thing that will have to do is to sell that software :-)

First photos from new camera

2008-02-28T12:25:00.000+02:00

Here is new night photo made yesterday.

My first SLR camera

2008-02-26T14:55:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I've bought my first SLR camera Olympus E510.

It's really great camera, first impressions are cool!

Here is full review of the camera:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse510/page3.asp

Hi

2008-02-13T16:01:00.000+02:00

Here is my first post :)