tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9538000500470473192012-01-29T15:42:52.932Zneil kilbride's blogAll programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.comBlogger541100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-55620836967924225212010-02-10T18:41:00.001Z2010-02-10T18:41:58.388ZOut with the Old...If anyone stumbles across this old thing, my shiny new blog can be found at http://www.dottodotnet.comNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-80289389238866127282008-04-17T09:13:00.001+01:002008-04-17T09:15:28.929+01:00Cannot resolve the collation conflict T-SQL
Cannot resolve the collation conflict between XXX and YYY in the equal to operation
I recently got this whilst doing some SQL queries that involved joins between two fields with different (albeit very similar) collation types. To stop SQL server from screaming, you'll need to perform a sort of collation cast. The quickest way is to cast one of the field's collation so it matches the other, or Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-40798311779167857142008-04-13T15:08:00.010+01:002008-04-16T09:54:54.318+01:00Use CSS not JavaScript for rollovers!
Why use Javascript for your rollovers when simple CSS will do? I prefer CSS over Javascript because it degrades better in non-compatible browsers in comparison to JavaScript and it's so straight forward to implement in CSS, just take a peek below...
CSS rollover example in action:
Hidden Text
CSS rollover code:
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
a.rollover
{
display: block;
width: 50pxNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-4144770562949398472008-04-10T10:52:00.003+01:002008-04-10T10:56:55.299+01:00How to access the Call Stack C#
As methods are called, information about them are placed on the call stack. The call stack is invaluable in development work for debugging problems, but it can also be useful in other situations (e.g. when logging for an entire app or library is processed by a logging utility in one location).
.NET makes it simple for us to work with the call stack. The functionality is provided via the Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-53565649565719614312008-04-04T18:11:00.004+01:002008-04-10T11:13:17.616+01:00Configure log4net only once
log4net is a great logging framework with powerful levels of flexibility. This flexibility can result in complexity when used in larger systems. One key point when using log4net in complex systems is to remember to configure the file to log to just once per process.
The file to log to is configured in the call to log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure() call this just once per process
In Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-64396224604868430292008-04-03T13:21:00.003+01:002008-04-03T13:27:18.052+01:00Removing XmlDocument white space c#
I've recently been working on matching certain API calls with XML data pulled from an XML file for testing purposes. I noticed there was a large amount of white space left in the XML when pulled from the resourced XML file; which is something I didn't want.
I thought setting the XmlDocument.PreserveWhitespace property to false would remove this for me, but it just seems to remove the Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-84233842424948849582008-03-28T11:42:00.003Z2008-03-28T11:49:49.757ZHttpHandler for all requests in ASP.Net on IIS
Setting up a HttpHandler for handling ALL incoming requests is straight forward with .Net and IIS. Provided you've created your .Net HttpHandler project to sucessfully handle the requests, you need to do the two following tasks:
1) Ensure that the web.config references the HttpHandler you've created
To the httpHandlers section of your web.config file add a reference to your httpHandler for Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-83227603850576049892008-03-26T12:41:00.003Z2008-03-26T12:48:47.920ZXSLT Transform in C# (a piece of cake)
Whilst there are times when I'd rather be rubbing Dorset Naga chillies in my eyes, most days I'm glad I develop in C# on the .Net framework. Take today for example. I needed to look into manipulating XML via XSLT; a powerful transformation language for XML. I thought it would take a while, around 3 hours; but with the powerful .Net library I had built a win forms app that takes XML input, XSLT Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-17785837061786114692008-03-25T17:02:00.007Z2008-03-26T09:37:01.203ZI need some ReST
Despite working hard on two newly released services (BlogIt and Voice SMS) for Esendex there is no time to stop and catch my breath; I've begun working on a completely new ReST API.
With ReST (Representational State Transfer), the idea is that the services are comprised of resources (an item of interest). Calls to ReST services return a representation of a resource placing the client Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-40091667696716756592008-03-18T11:46:00.000Z2008-03-18T11:47:50.405ZDateTime format & globalization problems in ASP.Net
Some problems cropped up recently on a project relating to datetime formats and globalisation. At first glance it seemed that it was related to en-US and en-GB datetime format conflicts. However, it was difficult to figure out why with the machine being setup in the English en-GB globalisation settings?! Turns out that an explicit globalization attribute in the apps config is required to ensure Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-63180280793179595762008-03-17T11:38:00.000Z2008-03-17T11:40:07.386ZLog4net - problems logging from a web app
There have been a couple of occasions when logging just won't work for me in a web application. This typically means that log4net is getting permission issues. The web application runs as a special user account on the web server called ASPNET (usually). This account has restricted permissions to
protect the web server from attacks. By default this account may not have permission to write to theNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-51678262408071170002008-03-15T12:51:00.000Z2008-03-15T12:52:53.864ZSQL - Replace line breaks and other characters
I'm not quite as proficient with SQL as I'd like, so when I stumble across little SQL gems I know I'll use again I like to note them down; what better a place to do that than my blog to share with the rest of the web :)
This is a Transact SQL example, on how to replace a character on a select. The character being replaced is just the ASCII code of the character.
SELECT REPLACE($FIELD, CHAR($Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-8882340881763895802008-03-12T10:18:00.004Z2008-03-12T10:22:56.308ZUpdate your Blog by SMS wherever you are
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/03/update-your-blog-by-sms-wherever-you.html';
BlogIt is a new, free service mobile blogging service available to all new and existing Esendex users. Whether you are a personal blogger or professional journalist, BlogIt is the perfect tool for updating your blog when you are on the move - just submit your posts by SMS message.
Validated posts Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-52008778766105154642008-02-29T15:03:00.001Z2008-02-29T15:06:18.509ZClear Concise HTTP Status Codes List
I've recently been looking into ReST services, and needless to say you need to know your HTTP status codes. These are a set of standardised response codes given by web site servers on the Internet. The codes help identify the cause of the problem when a web page or other resource does not load properly. Here is a concise list for reference purposes.
Information # 1xx
Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-76277187370641658682008-02-27T13:31:00.003Z2008-02-27T13:35:38.047ZWindows 2003 IIS returns 404 for ASP.Net pages
Had an issue on one of our externally managed servers which wouldn't process any ASP.Net documents (aspx, asmx etc), but would just return a 404. However, it would happily return other files such as htm, txt, css. There was no web application logging, no logs in event viewer I had nothing to go on, until I remembered about the often forgotten and rarely used IIS logs (see my article on where Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-64516654893032927602008-02-20T17:20:00.005Z2008-02-20T17:38:09.090ZASP.Net Production Web Server Top Tip
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/02/aspnet-production-web-server-top-tip.html';
There are a number of things we want to ensure on our production servers:
The debug attribute in the compilation element in the web.config should be false for all applications. This is mainly for performance reasons, leaving it to false means:
1) The compilation of ASP.NET pages takes longer (Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-43017484606106613242008-02-20T10:01:00.002Z2008-02-20T10:05:34.243ZControl name changes due to xhtmlConformance
Another strange and unwanted ASP.Net problem cropped up today when we least needed it to. We had some code problems occurring on some servers, but the exact same code worked fine on other servers. The problem was related to some code that hadn't changed for a long time, and left the development team scratching our heads.
Turns out in the HTML the naming convention for controls were different Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-3973697223977812652008-02-15T13:41:00.003Z2008-02-15T14:51:08.383ZSplit a text file with VBScript
I had to split some text reports (csv format) that are read by colleagues in Excel just the other day. Excel can only read ~65k lines on one sheet, but the reports were ~100k lines - so I had to split the files in two. The reports are generated via script; so I decided to write another script to split the files at around the 60K mark. Hope this can save someone else some time :)
The script Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-70776705128380883402008-02-15T12:16:00.003Z2008-02-15T12:25:33.318ZHTML Email Newsletter Top Tips
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/02/html-email-newsletter-top-tips.html';
Email newsletters are common place for advertising products, services and events. Considering it's uses, it is easy to understand why
html newsletters are king; who wants to send plain text emails when we can send fancy text and graphics?! Below are some simple tips to get you started
with your html Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-80746010938083403982008-02-07T14:28:00.000Z2008-02-07T14:39:31.378ZFinding a User Mac Address (Javascript)
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/02/finding-user-mac-address-javascript.html';
Unless a user is on an internal network, there is no way server-side (I know of) to retrieve the mac address of a user accessing a web page, simply because it isn't sent in the http headers for a request. Any attempt to analyze the underlying network communications server side is pointless as it Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-62225683067469604462008-02-01T17:46:00.000Z2008-02-01T17:56:09.974ZCould not load file or assembly App_Web_XXXCame across a completely random exception today on a new web server:
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'App_Web_XXX, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: 'App_Web_XXX, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'
After some digging, I found issue is now Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-35123869236345532502008-01-30T09:54:00.000Z2008-01-30T11:23:53.823ZWhere are my IIS Logs?
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/01/where-are-my-iis-logs.html';
Although you may have bucket loads of logging taking place in your web applications/sites, you may still feel the need to make use of the IIS logs. Use the following steps to track down these hidden away log files:
Open Internet Information Services (IIS)
Right-click the desired web site and select Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-36467712887250904262008-01-28T17:33:00.000Z2008-01-28T17:38:45.445ZUser is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connectionLogin failed for user 'username'. The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection.
This error had me scratching my head today for around 30 mins (mainly because I rarely setup SQL Server instances from scratch), and took me just 30 secs to fix.
Basically the SQL server instance you are conecting to has been configured to operate in Windows Authentication Mode and doesn't allow Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-66029954879920016772008-01-28T09:11:00.001Z2008-04-09T00:20:16.032+01:00ASP.Net AJAX Not Working (Full page postback)The conversion process from VS 2003 to VS 2005 for web projects may result in strange behaviour when adding new client-side JavaScript to the project. For me this was evident when using ASP.Net AJAX UpdatePanel controls, which resulted in a page performing a full-page postback instead of a partial page postback of the desired AJAX page elements.
ASP.Net 1 and 1.1 did not emit XHTML compliant Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-43696519960586107012008-01-22T09:55:00.000Z2008-01-22T09:57:37.633ZBrowser CSS Differences (IE6 IE7 Firefox)
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/01/browser-css-differences-ie6-ie7-firefox.html';
Typically the 3 major browsers used are Firefox, IE6 and IE7. Perhaps you thought they would behave the behave the same when rendering CSS in the browser window? If only life were that simple.
Although Firefox and IE7 and more similar than ever in rendering CSS, IE6 has always had a mind of Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-83813544409279199662008-01-22T09:36:00.000Z2008-01-22T09:42:05.789ZRegular Expression for a GUIDJust a quick post, if you ever need a regular expression to match a guid, for example - in a URL, then look no further :)
([0-9a-fA-F]{8}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{12})
Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-80259034195463895082008-01-17T17:47:00.000Z2008-01-17T17:59:08.613ZGetting Started with Profiles In ASP.Net 2
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2008/01/getting-started-with-profiles-in-aspnet.html';
Profiles In ASP.Net 2 uses the same provider-based structure used by ASP.NET membership and role management amongst other features. ASP.NET includes a profile provider that stores data using Microsoft SQL Server. The default ASP.NET machine.config contains a default SqlProfileProvider instance Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-32249390630677148342008-01-16T12:23:00.000Z2008-01-16T15:48:21.671ZJavaScript Syntax Highlighter for C# SQL XML VB and moreTo bring your code to life on your blogs/web sites there is a great syntax highlighter written in JavaScript simply called Syntax Highlighter and best of all ...it's free! Supported languages/markup include C, C++, C#, CSS, Delphi, Java, javaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL, VB, XML, HTML - see the C# example below:
// This is just an example
public string Message
{
get
{
// Get a value fromNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-12345403671742384782008-01-14T14:08:00.000Z2008-01-14T15:49:22.175ZIHttpHandler IsReusable PropertyThere isn't much clear info regarding this property on the net. It can be better in terms of performance when the property is set to true, but can cause some headaches if you have set it to true in the wrong scenario.
public bool IsReusable
{
get
{
return false;
}
}
The property is used to indicate if a single intantiation of your IHttpHandler implementation can be used to Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-57098841018037272992008-01-07T17:46:00.000Z2008-01-07T17:53:11.782ZSystem.Web.HttpException: Maximum request length exceededThe HttpRuntimeSection.MaxRequestLength is a property new to the .Net 2 framework, which is used to control the maximum request size in kilobytes for a web app. The default size is 4096 KB (4 MB), and the property is useful for preventing DOS (denial of service) attacks caused by site users posting large files to the server.
If you are uploading large files to a web app you may find the property Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-68516167361663146562007-11-29T09:39:00.000Z2007-11-29T09:59:45.637ZXmlNode and how to add CDATA to it
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/11/xmlnode-and-how-to-add-cdata-to-it.html';
All I needed to do was create via C# an XML file that included some CDATA sections:<description><![CDATA[<P>hello world</P>]]></description>After looking at the XmlDocument MSDN pages, it looked to be as simple as I had hoped. I ventured forth and created the following c#:
XmlNode itemDescription = Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-82497784988151739192007-11-20T10:18:00.000Z2007-11-20T10:20:52.295ZHttpRequestValidationException
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/11/httprequestvalidationexception.html';
You may stumble across the following exception when working with inputing html through a form:Exception type: HttpRequestValidationException
Exception message: A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the clientThis is .Net attempting to protect us from a potentially malicious input Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-49523390312491853782007-11-16T08:35:00.000Z2007-11-16T16:10:01.186ZWeb App Security - Top 5 Vulnerabilities You NEED to Know About
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/11/web-app-security-top-5-vulnerabilities.html';
Security was a hot topic at TechEd Developers 2007 and I was keen to attend some of the talks related to Web App security in particular. A couple of talks conveyed well the importance of security and showed first hand a number of top vulnerabilities that web apps can be left open to. Below are Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-36745693916423045432007-11-16T08:25:00.000Z2007-11-16T08:31:47.342ZMS ASP.Net AJAX Cheat Sheets
Just stumbled across some concise and extremely helpful MS AJAX Javascript Library cheat sheets. Definitely worth a look if you work with AJAX in .Net, you'll soon wonder how you lived without them :)
Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-29248567671818970792007-11-06T16:00:00.000Z2007-11-07T16:21:52.829ZTechEd Europe 2007 Keynote
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/11/teched-europe-2007-keynote.html';
Keynote Speech : As expected, there was the usual build up of upcoming Microsoft releases (VS 2008, Microsoft Expression, Silverlight, .Net framework 3.5 to name but a few) present in the opening speech, and although this was interesting, I felt most impressed with Somasegar's achievements and commitments to Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-71333831125391714112007-11-04T19:30:00.000Z2007-11-05T19:56:04.456ZMicrosoft TechEd Developers 2007 @ Barcelona
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/11/microsoft-teched-developers-2007.html';
I’ve finally reached beautiful, vibrant and diverse Barcelona. With it’s remarkable two thousand years of history leave parts of this city like a grand scale museum, you can’t help but notice the drive for change and renovation also present here. A perfect setting perhaps to be given the opportunity ofNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-72306053657994661122007-10-31T11:46:00.000Z2007-10-31T11:47:27.083ZEPiServer System.Security.SecurityExceptionOn application start up you get : Server Error in '/' Application.. All subsequent requests are fine until the app is restarted.
The actual error details : System.Security.SecurityException: Requested registry access is not allowed
After browsing the forums, it seems to be a problem when you don't install episerver in the usual manner or it was installed without admin priviledges. A quick way Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-67946701564738764392007-10-18T13:05:00.000+01:002008-02-06T17:12:29.307ZChecking an assembly is strong named
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/10/checking-assembly-is-strong-named.html';
A strong named assembly's identity consists of a simple text name, version number, and culture information (optional) - plus a public key and a digital signature.
Strong names guarantee name uniqueness by relying on unique key pairs
Strong names protect the version lineage of an assembly. A strong Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-76046420427221993762007-10-12T17:26:00.002+01:002008-05-07T23:46:10.674+01:00Visual Studio Error List (HTML Errors)
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/10/visual-studio-error-list-html-errors.html';
Nothing annoys me more on a Friday afternoon than the Visual Studio Error List rearring its ugly head and popping up with errors (often irrelevant ones) about the HTML markup.
So after playing about with settings and poking around the interweb I found you can either just close all the HTML (or Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-74412923687652643772007-10-10T17:45:00.000+01:002007-10-10T18:03:38.458+01:00EPiServer Friendly URLS
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/10/episerver-friendly-urls.html';
When integrating our existing Esendex site with EPiServer and deploying onto different web servers we had some issues with friendly URLs. For friendly URLs to work when putting the web site on your different servers you need to ensure the following:
Friendly URL option is enabled in your site config <add key=Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-90178330461958556922007-10-10T09:06:00.000+01:002007-10-10T09:46:23.742+01:00EPiServer Logging & Tail
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/10/episerver-logging.html';
Any decent developer will know the importance of logging on development machines and in a live environment, so it is worth spending the time setting it up correctly. To get logging initally is easy in EPiServer. just create file in the EPiServer web site directory called EPiServerLog.config and add the following to Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-64300480631522851282007-09-07T19:39:00.000+01:002007-10-10T11:29:43.045+01:00Your site has been EPiServed!
digg_url ='http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/09/your-site-has-been-episerved.html';
Why EPiServer? I was asked to test out a 3rd party CMS system to replace our internal CMS implementation. The CMS system being tested was from a Swedish company called
EPiServer. Whilst they are currently working on and releasing betas of a new .Net 3 version of there system EPiServer 5, we decided to Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-82804157076595350812007-08-13T14:55:00.000+01:002007-08-13T18:21:00.630+01:00Multiple Websites In Windows XP Pro & IISProblem : You would like to create a new virtual site in IIS 5.1 on Windows XP Pro rather than a virtual directory. For example, you may want to do this when creating a site as a virtual directory is causing you problems with path offsets when referring to itself with absolute or relative paths.
Surprisingly you find you can't add a virtual site through the IIS GUI - which is different to Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-48156993336339163332007-07-15T21:52:00.000+01:002007-07-16T09:36:48.637+01:00.Net Photo Gallery Control (PhotoHandler)I had a quick Google for a .Net control or library for creating an online photo album easily - and therefore save me some time in writing my own. I then found a reference on ScottGu's blog about a PhotoHandler, which is a little project of Bertrand Le Roy.
It is basically one C# code file that can be used as a control on a page or you can just browse to the file itself and it will display the Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-38465704546362130152007-07-09T09:28:00.000+01:002007-07-09T09:51:22.607+01:00WML / WAP page won't display (WML debugging)WML / WAP browsers tend to keel over and die if they encounter anything they don't like. If your WML / WAP browser isn't displaying your page then check the following:
1. Ensure the WML is well formed and valid, there is a W3 Schools WML validator you may find very handy.
2. WML / WAP browsers refuse to work if the content type you are returning in the HTTP 200 response isn't Content-Type: Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-53994593671498009182007-07-06T12:49:00.000+01:002007-07-09T17:19:33.396+01:00Detecting a Mobile / WAP Browser in code (using User-Agent)I recently got a task to create a simple terms and conditions page that would be sent in a link via our SMS API as a SMS or WAP Push message. The idea being that the phone can browse to the URL via the WAP browser or alternatively use a browser on their PC or MAC.
I wanted some sort of simple switch, to display a WAP WML page for a mobile browser or a full html page for a PC or MAC browser. I Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-63178468895057497552007-07-02T10:13:00.000+01:002007-07-02T10:51:12.238+01:00Web page content / Dummy web text (Lorem Ipsum)Whilst working on implementing a new design for the Esendex site I wanted to see what the layout looked like with content in place. I also wanted to use text that didn't distract me or other colleagues working on the design (i.e. not repeat 'hello world' 100 times), so I needed to make it look like readable English but not be :)
I wondered if there was some sort of latin text generator similar Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-6511878293113552002007-06-15T13:25:00.000+01:002007-06-15T14:44:38.737+01:00New Web Browser War Looming?Being a .Net developer I use Microsoft IE 7 to develop my web applications. However, Mozilla Firefox is my preferred choice to browse the web. I was interested to see that Apple released Safari for the Windows OS and even more interestingly, it was reportedly downloaded more than a million times in the first 48 hours of its release! Which I think you'll agree, is not bad by any one's standards?
Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-87488314325614760042007-05-22T17:16:00.001+01:002007-05-22T17:42:52.297+01:00Using code in your blogs (blogger.com)Not sure if everyone is aware of this, but the easiest way to blog code snippets in html on blogger.com is to put the code between <pre> tags, this applies a coding style and preserves whitespace (so you don't have to use ).
So to get this:
public void Go
{
// TODO : Do some work
}
Blog with the following html:
<pre>
public void Go
{
// TODO : Do some work
}
</pre>
Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-26560830839291006002007-05-22T09:19:00.000+01:002007-05-22T17:38:13.356+01:00Cannot create/shadow copy when that file already existsThe .Net Framework has a feature called Shadow Copy. Shadow copy is enabled on every appdomain created by ASP.NET by default.
By default assemblies loaded will be copied to a shadow copy cache directory, and will be used from that location.
Why does ASP.Net do this? So the original file is not locked and can be modified.
An interesting error I have ran into intermittently when running ASP.NetNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-57476608924284266712007-05-15T09:05:00.000+01:002007-05-22T17:15:09.984+01:00Storing ViewState into SessionHTTP requests and responses are inherently stateless. To maintain state between HTTP requests, ASP.NET server pages can store Page state. This state, called ViewState, consists of page and control settings and data that make the page and controls appear as if they are the same ones that the user saw and interacted with on their last round trip to the page.
Why would you want to store ViewState Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-34382071403825829042007-05-11T16:56:00.000+01:002007-05-11T17:08:56.880+01:00Get going with AJAX in .NetI started to look into AJAX in 2006 and then didn't get a chance play with the AJAX technologies properly until today. I noticed that there had been some updates to the original AJAX toolkit so I decided to remove everything AJAX and start again from scratch - here's some easy steps to get you going.
(Downloads can be found @ ASP.net AJAX site)
Step 1) Install AJAX Extensions 1.0
This downloadNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-62739919397848578732007-05-10T16:44:00.003+01:002008-03-27T10:41:20.070ZUsing Bind Monitor (FUSLOGVW.exe)
Don't you just hate it when you've done all the development work and you are finally deploying the release onto a server and BANG! It doesn't work, you have some sort of assembly loading exception/file not found exception?
All of us (yes even you) have had assembly binding issues on our server and development machines, but not many of us know about or make use of the Bind Monitor (FUSLOGVW.exeNeil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-62447992660347736052007-04-16T16:45:00.000+01:002007-04-16T16:46:52.110+01:00And so it begins...I've finally gotten around to posting my first public statement into the blogosphere! Woohoo! Hopefully I'll get some useful posts on here starting this week. Not sure what I'm going to blog exactly but I imagine it will mostly involve web application development in the .Net framework, CSS, Javascript, (X)HTML, and maybe some PHP and Perl (but hopefully not too much Perl :P).Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.com1