tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9538000500470473192010-01-04T00:42:40.721Zneil kilbride's blogAll programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.Neil kilbridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11689141460411902032noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag: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)
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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.com39tag: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-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-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-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.com20tag: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.com7tag: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.com5tag: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-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
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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.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-953800050047047319.post-64516654893032927602008-02-20T17:20:00.005Z2008-02-20T17:38:09.090ZASP.Net Production Web Server Top Tip
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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
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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)
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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-67946701564738764392007-10-18T13:05:00.000+01:002008-02-06T17:12:29.307ZChecking an assembly is strong named
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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-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?
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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.com1