.net rush

Palindrome Interview Question

2011-12-05T13:18:00.004-05:00

When I was in college I met with a couple of Microsoft employees who interviewed me for an intern position with the Office team. In the interview they asked me to write something that would check if a word is a palindrome or not. A palindrome is a word that can be spelled the same way forward and backward. I thought this was a great interview question and have since used it when I interview job candidates.

Can you come up with the solution? I'll post mine in the comments.

Base64 Image Converter

2011-06-14T00:13:00.002-04:00

I needed to base64 encode an image tonight but couldn't find the right tool online to do it for me - so I ended up writing one myself. You can use the generated base64 encoded string as the SRC attribute in your HTML or CSS.

http://www.rushfrisby.com/base64/

Numeric only input using jQuery

2011-05-24T13:19:00.004-04:00

This is a nifty little jquery snippet I use all the time for numeric only text boxes.

$(function () {
    $(".numeric").live("keydown", function (e) {
        if (e.keyCode != 46 && e.keyCode != 8) {
            if (e.keyCode < 48 || e.keyCode > 57) {
                e.preventDefault();
            }
        }
    });
});

WP7 Mango features

2011-05-24T10:50:00.004-04:00

These are features that were announced and demo'ed during today's Microsoft press event on Windows Phone 7.

Notifications are pushed to "smarter" live tiles.
Live Tiles light up, flip around.
Twitter and LinkedIn are now integrated.
People Hub shows pictures from all social networks.
Groups let you bunch related people together.
Live Messenger.
Facebook Chat.
Smarter keyboard that predicts the next word for you.
SMS to chat for continuing conversations.
More emails options like flagging an e-mail as 'do not forward'.
Calendar shows Facebook events.
Text to speech and voice recognition.
Facebook tagging/face detection built in.
More integration with Skydrive/Office 365.
You can now jump out of a game quickly and back in again without losing your progress.
Multi-tasking.
IE9-Hardware acceleration.
IE9-HTML5 support.
IE9-App Connect, handing off a search result to an app.
Greater international support.
Photo-to-search feature.
Proximity search for local stores,events,etc.

Over 500 features added but all have not been listed yet. I am hoping they separated the volume controls. My ear drums are suffering in the meantime.

goLook.at Short URL Service - Or is it?

2011-03-28T14:13:00.005-04:00

I just learned of goLook.at URL shortening service. The point of this service is to make shortened URLs "better". How do they make them "better" you may ask? They add TAGS! I can't believe someone wasted their time adding tags to shortened URLs.

When you shorten a URL you do so because you want something AS SHORT AS POSSIBLE so that you can squeeze it into a tweet or an email. A goLook.at URL ends up looking like http://short.url/tag1/tag2/tag3 and gets longer and longer based on how many tags you add. That is the complete opposite of what you are trying accomplish by shortening a URL.

When shortening URLs, SHORTER IS BETTER.

I could see this working in the future though if you came up with a better tagging schema. You would have to base the shortened url off of a one word keyword. Most shortened urls have a randomly generated string which identifies the URL. Instead of using a random string it would use the keyword as the identifier. If another person chooses the same keyword you could prompt them for another, or append something to it that would make it unique.

for example this is the shortened url for this blog: http://d76.fi.gd

with a keyword "dotnet" you could make it short and better by generating something like http://dotnet.fi.gd

and if "dotnet" was already used to shorten another url you could prompt me for another keyword or suggest something like http://dotnet2.fi.gd, although I would probably choose another keyword.

Better yet, if you could infer a keyword for me, or give me a list to choose from (from my page title, meta keywords, the full URL, or page content) then I wouldn't even have to type anything in, I could view a list of possibilities and pick one.

Windows Folder Size Report application

2010-12-10T01:10:00.002-05:00

This app will sum up the size of all folders and their subfolders and files. This quickly lets you see what folders are taking up a lot of space on your hard drive.

Download: FolderSize.zip (6 KB)

Screenshot:

You must have .NET 4 installed to run it.

Browser HTML 5 Tests

2010-04-11T17:15:00.004-04:00

Found a site that tests HTML 5 features and produces a score for your browser. Here are the results for 5 browsers I ran on my machine.

Browser	Score
IE 8	19 / 160
Firefox 3.6.3	101 / 160
Opera 10.51	102 / 160
Safari 4.0.3	115 / 160
Chrome 4.1.249	118 / 160

And here are the screenshots.

If you would like to test your browser go to http://html5test.com/.

Sign-up Codes

2010-04-01T01:30:00.005-04:00

Today I am going to write about something that bugs me: sign-up codes. So what's the big deal with sign-up codes? A lot of companies use them as a way to influence consumers into signing up for a service or getting something for free, etc. You usually get them when you buy something. Remember the Sprite "under the cap" promo? These things are everywhere.

Now the problem I have with these sign-up codes is that they aren't always readable. How can you tell the difference between a 1 (the number one), I (the capital letter I), and l (the lower case letter L). Depending on the font your code was printed in you could be in real trouble trying to figure it out. That's not the only letter too. How about O and 0. 5 and S. vv (double v's) and w. 9 and g (a far stretch but could look similar depending on the font), 2 and Z. Now let's say your sign-up code is quite long and you have a few of these letter or numbers in it. How the heck are you supposed to figure it out then?

It just so happens that I tried to enter a sign-up code today and ran across this very issue. I have the 1-I-l character twice and O-0. My sign-up code is "7MIOBlaYjp". So how many combination am I guessing here?

18
here they all are...

7MIOBIaYjp
7MIOBlaYjp
7MIOB1aYjp
7MlOBIaYjp
7MlOBlaYjp
7MlOB1aYjp
7M1OBIaYjp
7M1OBlaYjp
7M1OB1aYjp
7MI0BIaYjp
7MI0BlaYjp
7MI0B1aYjp
7Ml0BIaYjp
7Ml0BlaYjp
7Ml0B1aYjp
7M10BIaYjp
7M10BlaYjp
7M10B1aYjp

Who would ever enter a code that many times? After a few tries most people will give up! It's hard to believe someone didn't notice this when they were tasked with this promo code project. Didn't they want me to get into whatever they were promoting? They were almost successful but because of a poor choice in code characters have now lost me.

A few years ago I was approached by a toy company to do write an application that generates promo codes. I made sure to take these considerations into account when I wrote it. Plus - it's toys so that means there is a good chance a child is entering the code. You have to make it AS EASY AS POSSIBLE!

The same thing goes for CAPTCHA's.

jQuery bxSlider plugin update

2010-03-31T11:36:00.004-04:00

I helped a friend modify the bxSlider plugin for jQuery yesterday. I emailed the author to see if he wanted to update his file with my changes but in case he doesn't I thought I would post it here in case anyone ever needed it.

The change is to make the slider pause when your mouse hovers over an item. You can view a demo and download it here.

Updated Javascript Benchmarks

2010-03-28T16:53:00.008-04:00

I got rid of IE8 in compatibility mode and added Opera 10.51. The Opera website claims that it is the fastest browser in the world. Let's see how their javascript engine stacks up against everyone else. Here are my updated results:

Browser	Result	xSlower	Link
Opera 10.51	471.8ms	-	Full results
Chrome 4.0	592.2ms	1.26	Full results
Safari 4.0	873.0ms	1.85	Full results
Firefox 3.6	892.6ms	1.89	Full results
IE8 64-bit	4928.4ms	10.45	Full results
IE8 32-bit	5051.0ms	10.71	Full results

Wow Opera is almost 2 times faster than Safari and Firefox! Granted I think they left out support for some things which is helping their claim to being the fastest. (like HTML5 possibly?)

How to display your Twitter timeline using jQuery

2010-03-23T22:30:00.006-04:00

I was challenged by a co-worker to display my latest tweets using classic ASP. He is always bragging about how awesome jQuery is (and I agree) so I used that instead. This is the result:

http://files.rushfrisby.com/misc/jquery_tweets/tweets.htm

<star wars commander voice>you may copy-and-paste when ready</star wars commander voice> but copy the tweet_formatter.js file to your own place because i might move it later ;-)

Favorite MIX10 Sessions

2010-03-21T12:56:00.003-04:00

I just got back from MIX10 and thought I would share some of my favorite sessions. My top 3 are

The OData Revolution

2010-03-19T13:23:00.006-04:00

In November I watched a PDC09 presentation on OData. I thought it was an incredible technology. This week I attended MIX10 and got a first hand look at how excited others were about it. There is a lot of emphasis from Microsoft being put on OData and after my experience this week I feel that this is the beginning of a data revolution. The idea is much larger than API's and web services. It is going to change the web as we know it. I expect to see much more on the web and in web-connected applications in terms of information and usefulness. If you don't believe me watch this presentation and check out the OData website.

On a completely separate note, I would like to help Scott get to the number one search result in Bing for the term "Scott". There's your link dude.

ValidateRequest in ASP.NET 4

2010-03-13T12:47:00.004-05:00

When switching to ASP.NET 4 I found that my existing ValidateRequest="false" settings were not working, and thus when I submitted HTML in the content of a textbox I would get ASP.NET errors.

In order for ValidateRequest to work in ASP.NET 4 you need to add this to your web.config file.

<system.web>
    <httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" />
</system.web>

This will get things working back to normal.

ClientIDs in databound ASP.NET 4 controls

2010-03-13T11:36:00.007-05:00

I am working on a project where I have recently changed the clientIDMode to "Static" in the web.config file. This seemed great because all of the output would have clean ids, however it broke asp.net ajax control toolkit controls that were nested in databound controls (such as a gridview).

There is an easy fix for the scenario.

What I did was set the ClientIDMode to "Predictable" on the gridview. I also set ClientIDRowSuffix to the name of the Primary Key field of my datasource. What is nice about using "Predictable" is that the ClientID values do not contain strings like "ctlxxx". Here is a quick example:

<asp:GridView ID="gvGroups" runat="server" AllowPaging="True" SkinID="GridView"
        AllowSorting="True" AutoGenerateColumns="False" DataKeyNames="GroupID" ClientIDMode="Predictable" ClientIDRowSuffix="GroupID"
        DataSourceID="SqlDataSourceGroups" OnRowCommand="gvGroups_RowCommand">

Enable "Design View" for ASP.NET Pages in Visual Studio 2010

2010-03-09T00:30:00.005-05:00

I installed Visual Studio 2010 RC and found it annoying that I could not switch to design view. I mostly work in source code view but there are some things I like using design view for, like editing all of my validation controls.

It took a few minutes but this is how I enabled it. Go to Tools > Options. This dialog box will open:

Look under the "HTML Designer" item. You may have to check the box in the lower left corner first that says "Show all settings". Then check the box that says "Enable HTML Designer (required restart of Visual Studio)". Choose which view you want your pages to start up in. Restart Visual Studio and you are all set! The next time you open a page it will have the familiar Design/Split/Source tabs at the bottom of the text editor.

Javascript Benchmarks

2010-02-28T12:00:00.004-05:00

See my updated results here.

Here is a snapshot of what kind of PC I ran my benchmarks on:

And here are the results.

Browser	Result	xSlower	Link
Chrome 4.0	592.2ms	-	Full results
Safari 4.0	873.0ms	1.47	Full results
Firefox 3.6	892.6ms	1.50	Full results
IE8 64-bit	4928.4ms	8.32	Full results
IE8 32-bit	5051.0ms	8.53	Full results
IE8 32-bit compatability mode	5731.4ms	9.68	Full results

These didn't surprise me but it was fun just to see the comparison.

The need for T-SQL still exists

2009-05-28T09:39:00.008-04:00

Since I began using Linq-To-SQL (L2S) I haven't written nearly as much T-SQL queries as I used to. It's been great. The best part comes when you look at the T-SQL that is generated and how optimized it is. So why would someone new to programming need to learn T-SQL or why would it benefit me to keep up-to-date on this language?

If you look at L2S you'll notice that it's not perfect! At first I didn't care because I loved it so much but now it's starting to bug me. In order to UPDATE a record you have pull back the object from the database. That does a SELECT statement. Then to update it, it does an UPDATE. The update is fine it's the SELECT that is the problem. It's unnecessary in most cases.

For example lets say I have a table:

VoteOptions
- OptionID int
- OptionValue varchar(64)
- Votes int

Lets assume I am not concerned with how many times a person votes/validation/etc. In order to update a record in this table using L2S.

int OptionID = 1;
MyDataContext db = new MyDataContext();
VoteOption option = db.VoteOptions.SingleOrDefault(vo => vo.OptionID==OptionID);
option.Votes += 1;
db.SubmitChanges();

So here we have db.VoteOptions.SingleOrDefault pulling back the entire VoteOption record. This record is small but what if it was bigger? What if we did it thousands of times? What a waste!

We can make a small adjustment here, still use L2S (and T-SQL), and be much more efficient.

int OptionID = 1;
MyDataContext db = new MyDataContext();
db.ExecuteCommand("UPDATE VoteOptions SET Votes=Votes+1 WHERE OptionID={0}", OptionID);

It's also 2 lines of code less. ExecuteCommand and ExecuteQuery methods + T-SQL make for a great combination and because it's built into my data context I still have the ability to use L2S for other stuff. After listening to this podcast about StackOverflow there is a point where Jeff mentions he does this on the site. Just something to keep in mind while using L2S!

Removing a list of strings from another list using Predicates

2009-01-27T09:30:00.004-05:00

I was writing some code and wanted to remove a list of strings from another list, except I wanted to do it a few times. After looking at the code I wrote it looked very ugly. Using a new .NET 2.0 feature you can get rid of the ugly foreach loops though and cut it down to one line that looks nice. Here is the example:

List<string> menu = new List<string>();
menu.AddRange(new string[] {“watermelon”, “pizza”, “ice cream”, “soda”, “robbies mom”});

List<string> unavailable = new List<string>();
unavailable.AddRange(new string[] {“ice cream”, “robbies mom”});

//the old way would be a mess like this
List<string> temp = menu;
foreach(string item in temp) {
    foreach(string match in unavailable) {
        if(item == match)
            menu.Remove(item);
    }
}

//using the PredicateListMatch it takes one line
menu.RemoveAll(new PredicateListMatch(unavailable).Match);

This is the PredicateListMatch class that I am using to accomplish this.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class PredicateListMatch {
    private List<string> _value;

    public PredicateListMatch(List<string> Value) {
        _value = Value;
    }

    public List<string> Value {
        get { return _value; }
        set { _value = value; }
    }

    public Predicate<string> Match {
        get { return IsMatch; }
    }

    public Predicate<string> NoMatch {
        get { return IsNoMatch; }
    }

    private bool IsMatch(string s) {
        bool match = false;
        foreach (string b in _value) {
            if (s.Trim().ToLower() == b.Trim().ToLower()) {
                match = true;
                break;
            }
        }
        return match;
    }

    private bool IsNoMatch(string s) {
        bool match = true;
        foreach (string b in _value) {
            if (s.Trim().ToLower() == b.Trim().ToLower()) {
                match = false;
                break;
            }
        }
        return match;
    }
}

PageGlimpse .NET library

2008-10-17T14:04:00.005-04:00

Last week I heard about this cool service called PageGlimpse that provides screenshots of any website. They have an API available so I wrote a .NET wrapper for it. It is super easy to use and the download comes with a full example.

Download the PageGlimpse .NET API Library

UrlRewriting.NET IncludeQueryStringForRewrite bug fix

2008-10-06T14:11:00.003-04:00

I have a bug fix for UrlRewriting.NET. The bug is with rewrite rules that use the IncludeQueryStringForRewrite setting. Take the following example rule:

<add name="Rewrite" virtualUrl="^~/pages/(.*)/(.*)"
rewriteUrlParameter="IncludeQueryStringForRewrite"
destinationUrl="~/pages/$1.asp?title=$2"
ignoreCase="true" />

Let's say I go the url: http://localhost/pages/1/My Title?test=Test1&blah=Blah1

How the module was handling this was taking the first querystring parameter and making it part of my last regex match. If you look at the request.querystring values you would see this:

title = MyTitle?test=Test1
test =
blah = Blah1

What my fix does is check the rewrite url before it is rewritten and if it finds a second question mark changes it to an ampersand. This might not be the best way to fix this but was the easiest since the code was a bit much. The results fixed the querystring values:

title = MyTitle
test = Test1
blah = Blah1

You can download the fix here:
http://files.rushfrisby.com/dotnetrush/code/UrlRewritingNet_20_Source.zip

I also converted the project to .NET 3.5 and changed some build settings for the release version to hopefully get it to run faster.

Yahoo! BOSS .NET Library

2008-09-15T12:12:00.004-04:00

For my hack at this years' Yahoo! Open Hack Day I created a library for accessing the BOSS search API. You can get a copy of the library on my website:

Yahoo! BOSS .NET Library

Yahoo! Open Hackday 2008

2008-08-19T11:10:00.003-04:00

In 2006 I went to the first Yahoo! Open Hackday and I am heading back Sept 12-13 for round 2. Last time I wrote the Flickr Wallpaper Rotator which as a hit. What kind of "hack" should I come up with this time?

Combine, minify, compress, and cache javascript and CSS

2008-07-18T10:58:00.003-04:00

I read this post from Mads Kristensen about how he took ScriptResource.axd and WebResource.axd references and combined them into one script, then minified it, compressed it, and cached it on the server. I gave it a try and got it to work but I ran into a couple of bugs. I fixed the ones I found and also duplicated the process to work with CSS. The CSS version uses cache dependencies on the css files so if you change something the user will get it right away. The link below has the classes and a readme with how to implement it.

CompressorClasses.zip

Enjoy!

C# 3.0 Properties simplified

2008-03-22T18:54:00.004-04:00

In versions previous to .NET 3.0 this is what a simple get/set property looked like:

private string _MyString = "";
public string MyString {
get { return _MyString; }
set { _MyString = value; }
}

Now in .NET 3.0 you can simplify this by typing:

public string MyString { get; set; }

So we've trimmed a few lines of code down to one and it makes our classes look a whole lot cleaner. These two examples compile exactly the same way so you don't have to worry about any performance issues. The only difference in 3.0 is that you reference your property instead of the private variable which doesn't make a difference one way or the other if you think about it. Yay for .NET!

Download DTS for SQL Server 2005 Express

2008-02-25T12:49:00.000-05:00

Somehow in the SQL Server 2005 management studio I had import/export (Launched the DTS Wizard) options when I right clicked on my databases even if they were on an SQL Express version server. When I reformatted my computer and installed the latest SQL express (SP2) I noticed that these menu options were gone! (also they changed the wording of "Modify" to "Design")

I did some searching and found that you can install the DTS wizard through this SQL toolkit:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=65111

Once it is installed you have to run the exe because I still don't see the Import/Export menu option in SMS. The exe is located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\DTSWizard.exe

AJAX Enabled Website Template Not Showing?

2008-02-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

I recently reformatted my laptop and reinstalled everything. I installed Visual Studio 2005 and AJAX Extensions 1.0. When I went to go create a new website I did not see the familiar "AJAX-Enabled Website Template". If you are having the same problem here is the answer!

Download this zip file and put it in:

C:\Documents and Settings\<User Directory>\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ProjectTemplates

The next time you open up visual studio you will see the new template.

Basic Threading Technique

2008-02-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

I thought I would share the threading technique that I use quite often. I haven't read much about what .NET has to offer in regards to this topic but my method is basic and works well so I stick with it.

I've created a new console application to demonstrate:

   1:  using System;

   2:  using System.Collections.Generic;

   3:  using System.Text;

   4:  using System.Data;

   5:  using System.Threading;

   6:  using System.Collections;

7:

   8:  namespace FeedvertizeConsole {

   9:      class Program {

10:

  11:          static ArrayList threads = new ArrayList();

  12:          static Queue q = new Queue();

13:

  14:          static void Main(string[] args) {

15:

  16:              // Get all feeds and add them to the queue

  17:              Console.WriteLine("Adding feeds to queue");

  18:              clsFeed feed = new clsFeed();

  19:              DataSet ds = feed.FillDs();

  20:              foreach (DataRow row in ds.Tables[0].Rows) {

  21:                  clsFeed container = new clsFeed();

  22:                  container.CategoryID = int.Parse(row["CategoryID"].ToString());

  23:                  container.FeedID = int.Parse(row["FeedID"].ToString());

  24:                  container.FeedURL = row["FeedURL"].ToString();

  25:                  q.Enqueue(container);

  26:              }

27:

  28:              // Create 16 threads

  29:              Console.WriteLine("Creating threads");

  30:              for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) {

  31:                  Program.CreateThread(i.ToString());

  32:              }

33:

  34:              Console.WriteLine("Waiting for threads to finish");

  35:              foreach (Thread thread in threads) {

  36:                  while (thread.ThreadState != ThreadState.Stopped) {

  37:                      // Keep looping until all of the threads are stopped.

  38:                  }

  39:              }

40:

  41:              Console.WriteLine("\nDone!\n");

  42:              Console.WriteLine("\nPress any key to exit.");

  43:              string n0th1ng = Console.ReadLine();

  44:          }

45:

  46:          static void CreateThread(string threadName) {

  47:              Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(ProcessFeeds));

  48:              thread.Name = threadName;

  49:              thread.Start();

  50:              threads.Add(thread);

  51:          }

52:

  53:          static void ProcessFeeds() {

  54:              while (q.Count > 0) {

  55:                  clsFeed feed = (clsFeed)q.Dequeue();

  56:                  HttpResponse response = Http.GetPage(feed.FeedURL);

  57:                  if (response.ResponseCode == 200) {

  58:                      // Process the feed

  59:                  }

  60:              }

  61:          }

62:

  63:      }

  64:  }

The outline here is simple: Create a Queue and add objects we want to process to it. Create an ArrayList to hold our threads, then add and start the threads. Each thread dequeue's the next available object and processes it meanwhile our main program waits for all threads to stop.

In my example clsFeed and Http objects are ones that I wrote but you should be able to use everything else as a template to create your own threaded application. Good luck!

If anyone else would like to make a post on their threading technique, send me an email and I'll post it up!

Using cursors and Query Optimization

2008-02-25T11:30:00.002-05:00

I am currently tracking sessions/hits on a few of my sites. One of the things I want to know is what are the most popular search terms that people use to find my sites. While writing a stored procedure to get my list of popular search terms I decided to see if a single query would be faster to count the number of searches for a particular term or if using a cursor would be faster. I've heard that cursors are "bad" but I use them often so I wanted to put it to the test. Here is my query:

declare @Date1 varchar(32), @Date2 varchar(32)

select @Date1 = '1/1/2000'

select @Date2 = '1/1/2009'

declare @d1 datetime, @d2 datetime

select @d1 = convert(datetime, @Date1 + ' 12:00:00 AM')

select @d2 = convert(datetime, @Date2 + ' 11:59:59 PM')

create table #temp (SearchQuery varchar(512), Hits int)

insert into #temp (SearchQuery, Hits)

select distinct Hit.SearchQuery, (select count(*) from Hit as Hit2 where Hit2.SearchQuery like Hit.SearchQuery) as Hits from Hit where SearchQuery NOT LIKE '' AND HitDate Between @d1 AND @d2

/*

DECLARE @SearchQuery varchar(512), @Hits int

DECLARE myCursor CURSOR FOR

select distinct SearchQuery from Hit where SearchQuery NOT LIKE '' and HitDate Between @d1 AND @d2

OPEN myCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM myCursor INTO @SearchQuery

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN

    select @Hits=COUNT(*) FROM Hit where SearchQuery=@SearchQuery

    insert into #temp (SearchQuery, Hits) values (@SearchQuery, @Hits)

    FETCH NEXT FROM myCursor INTO @SearchQuery

END

CLOSE myCursor

DEALLOCATE myCursor

*/

select * from #temp order by Hits desc

drop table #temp

At first you see that I am running the ORANGE query which has a subquery doing the counting. It took 59~60 seconds to run this on all the data I have.

Next up, I commented out the orange query and ran the GREEN query. It took 47 seconds to run! And people say that cursors are bad? BS! The last thing I did was switch the order of my WHERE clause:

SearchQuery NOT LIKE '' and HitDate Between @d1 AND @d2

to

HitDate Between @d1 AND @d2 and SearchQuery NOT LIKE ''

Which brought the run time down to 40 seconds! I also tried this on the orange query but it still took 59 seconds to run.

Conclusion

Cursors are not bad! You just have to know that in some cases they can work slower or faster and you should test each method to see what is best. Also remember that the order of your WHERE clause can speed your query up as well. In my case searching a date field was much faster than searching text.

What other optimization tips do you have?

AJAX CalendarExtender bug fixes

2008-02-25T11:29:00.001-05:00

One thing that has annoyed me about the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit CalendarExtender is that when you select a date the calendar does not disappear. In order to make it disappear you have to click on an area outside of the calendar. I did a search and found the following snippet of code which hides the calendar when you select a date. Works like a charm.

In your code behind add:

Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this.GetType(), "hideCalendar", "function hideCalendar(cb) { cb.hide(); }", true);

In your CalendarExtender control add the attribute:

OnClientDateSelectionChanged="hideCalendar"

Furthermore, there is a bug which causes the CalendarExtender to display incorrectly. This bug can be found when putting the extender inside of an UpdatePanel + MultiView control. In my case, I had a MultiView inside a TabContainer inside an UpdatePanel. The calendar is so distorted that you can't tell what it is nor can you click on any date - all functionality is lost! The reason is due to a CSS never loading because of the UpdatePanel. The work around for this another snippet of code I found on the web:

string url = Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(typeof(ClientCssResourceAttribute), "AjaxControlToolkit.Calendar.Calendar.css"); HtmlLink myHtmlLink = new HtmlLink(); myHtmlLink.Href = url; myHtmlLink.Attributes.Add("rel", "stylesheet"); myHtmlLink.Attributes.Add("type", "text/css"); Page.Header.Controls.Add(myHtmlLink);

Have fun fixing those bugs!

ASP.NET Tabs

2008-02-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

This demo will show you how to use the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Tab Container and Tab Panel controls. You can use these controls on a web page to display a tabbed interface.

You cannot view this video because your browser does not support iframe's.

One thing to note is that if you are currently on the second tab and trigger an event that does a post back, then your page will reload and not display the same tab you we're on. The work around I did using the UpdatePanel is an easy fix for this.

If you need your page to load with a certain tab selected, use the ActiveTabIndex property. (ex: TabContainer1.ActiveTabIndex = 2 will select the third tab). Usually if I want to do this conditionally I will link to a page with the tab index in the query string and then check for that value in the page_load event. If there is a value then make that tab active!

Web 2.0 "Bubble" is NOT about to Burst

2007-08-02T08:46:00.000-04:00

Over the past year now I have read various articles saying that the Web 2.0 "Bubble" is about to burst and I have a big problem with this. This article pushed me over the edge to actually write about it.

First of all it is not a bubble. Web 2.0 is a platform, not some kind of get rich quick scheme like the 2000 era sites. Not everyone is creating startups and selling them for big money. Investors know what's already happened and are more cautious in their decisions. There are some cool sites out there that are getting a little bit of funding, but most of them die rather than sell. Just check the TechCrunch dead pool.

Bloggers have been expecting this "bubble" to "pop" for a year now and it hasn't. It won't pop or even hiccup. This is technology and the future of software. It's like saying that the OS bubble is about to burst. Stupid right? These terms like "Web 2.0" tick me off too. All of the Web 2.0 terminology does actually. Haven't you seen the generators? They are making fun of those terms, not encouraging them. This is not a new version of the web; it's a reference for describing a site that is using some of the latest technologies and architecture. Web 2.0 does not reference design. When I say design I mean graphics because design can also mean other things. It drives me nuts to see job positions for "Web 2.0 Designers".

Stop saying "Web 2.0", "Bubble", and "Burst". Thanks.

C# SHA-2 Cryptography: SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512

2007-04-02T22:23:00.000-04:00

Here are some crypto methods for SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512 which I had not posted about before. This is the class I am using.


using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

public class clsCrypto {
    public clsCrypto() {
    }
    public static string md5encrypt(string phrase) {
        UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
        MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5hasher = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
        byte[] hashedDataBytes = md5hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
        return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
    }
    public static string sha1encrypt(string phrase) {
        UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
        SHA1CryptoServiceProvider sha1hasher = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider();
        byte[] hashedDataBytes = sha1hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
        return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
    }
    public static string sha256encrypt(string phrase) {
        UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
        SHA256Managed sha256hasher = new SHA256Managed();
        byte[] hashedDataBytes = sha256hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
        return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
    }
    public static string sha384encrypt(string phrase) {
        UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
        SHA384Managed sha384hasher = new SHA384Managed();
        byte[] hashedDataBytes = sha384hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
        return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
    }
    public static string sha512encrypt(string phrase) {
        UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
        SHA512Managed sha512hasher = new SHA512Managed();
        byte[] hashedDataBytes = sha512hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
        return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
    }
    public static string byteArrayToString(byte[] inputArray) {
        StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder("");
        for (int i = 0; i < inputArray.Length; i++) {
            output.Append(inputArray[i].ToString("X2"));
        }
        return output.ToString();
    }
}

Hackday 07

2007-03-09T22:25:00.000-05:00

Hackday 07 will be sometime in September. I already know I want to go. Evan do you want to create something together this year instead of doing separate hacks? Does anyone else want to go and join in on a hack? Let me know!

YouTube.NET API

2007-02-19T18:51:00.000-05:00

This component interfaces with YouTube's API. The download comes with a website full of examples on how to use it. If you want to integrate it into your project copy the DLL from the bin folder and put it into your project.

The component and example site were both written in Visual Studio 2005 using C#. It can also be used with VB.NET sites and Windows applications.

YouTube.NET API Component for .NET

Devconnections Orlando

2007-01-31T20:35:00.000-05:00

Devconnections.com is having their latest conference in Orlando! I wanted to go to the fall conference in Vegas pretty bad and wasn't able to due to the cost, so I am glad this one is just a few miles away. I will definately be attending. These conferences look great and I am really looking forward to it!

Web Developer Position

2007-01-11T23:20:00.000-05:00

My boss is submitting a requisition for a web developer today so I thought I would post it here before it ever gets to one of those public job listing sites. (And because I would really like the referral bonus!) Here are some quick details, this is unofficial but probably what the job description will look like:

Title: Web Developer II
Location: Maitland, FL (Basically Orlando - mapquest it)
Company: Sungard Higher Education
Requirements: ASP.NET 2.0, Classic ASP, SQL Server 2000/2005, Bachelor's degree in related field
Salary: 54K (I am 99% sure on this)

The company is in the fortune 500 so we are big. The Maitland office has about 150 people. My department only has 8 people which are all cool guys. All of the projects can be accomplished in the time projected. My boss doesn't look over your shoulder or any of that nonsense and is very nice. You'll get full health benefits and 401K and all that stuff. You get 3 weeks vacation, which is very uncommon. (After 4 years it increases to 4 weeks!, after 11 years it increases to 5 weeks!!) You also have 2 weeks sick leave and 8 corporate holidays. Personally I think this is one of the best company/jobs you can find on the east coast right now.

If you are interested or have any questions send me an email at rush@rushfrisby.com.

Blog Tagged

2007-01-05T01:53:00.000-05:00

I've been blog tagged by Evan; so much for starting the year off with a good post. In honor of this tagging game I need to post 5 things that most people do not know about me. Thanks a lot Evan :-P

While taking the SAT I was tired of reading all of the English exam questions so I skipped every other section and guessed. I scored a 1200+? (it was a long time ago) which is pretty good.

I am a certified scuba diver. I do most of my diving in the Cayman islands.

The engine in my first car blew up, twice. My second car was totaled (not my fault). I am on my third car right now (pray that nothing bad happens, thanks!).

I spent new years eve writing code. Yes, my girlfriend was pissed.

I have been playing soccer for the last 16 years and I love it.

One more for good luck: I love to snowboard, too bad it doesn't snow in Florida :'(

I am not tagging anyone, you are safe... for now!

C# date format regular expression

2006-12-29T00:43:00.000-05:00

I just checked the RegularExpressionValidator control and it does not have a preset regular expression to verify a US date format. You can enter this regular expression to do this:

^([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{4,4})$

Visual Studio Ctrl + Tab

2006-12-27T17:08:00.000-05:00

I found a cool feature in Visual Studio 2005 today. I meant to press Alt + Tab, but instead I pressed Ctrl + Tab. Instead of switching through windows it switched through documents I had open in Visual Studio. This is great because I only close documents when I have so many open that it becomes annoying to browse through them. With this feature I can open as many as I want and easily find them!

Running .NET 1.1 and 2.0 web applications simultaneously

2006-12-22T11:08:00.000-05:00

When I first started running .NET 2.0 web applications on my server, I would get errors in both 1.1 and 2.0 applications about every 10 minutes. For some reason my DefaultAppPool was getting shut down and I would have to restart it. After it happened a few times I figured there was something really wrong. I did some research and found that you cannot run 1.1 and 2.0 applications in the same application pool which, by default, is how IIS configures your applications. To fix this, follow these steps:

Create a new application pool:

Right click on Application Pools and go to New > Application Pool.

Name it "DotNet2" or something like that, and click OK. You will see it added to your list of application pools.
Tell your application to use the appropriate application pool:

Right click on your application and go to Properties. Switch to the Home Directory tab. At the bottom should be your Application Name. If this section is disabled then click the button to create a new application. Give it an easily identifiable name. The box at the very bottom will allow you to choose your application pool. Select DotNet2, or whatever you had named it in step 1.
Tell IIS to use ASP.NET 2.0:

Switch to the ASP.NET Tab. For the version use the drop down box to select 2.0.xxx.

That's it! You can leave your 1.1 applications running in the DefaultAppPool and they will be fine.

Application repository online

2006-12-20T16:43:00.000-05:00

I have put up an application repository on my website so that all of my apps are in a single easy to find place. You can view them at rushfrisby.com. The rest of the website isn't complete yet though, figures... Anyways since I have a new place to host my apps I updated my Flickr Wallpaper Rotator application profile on the Yahoo Application Gallery. It was approved and, to my surprise, is now the top editor's pick!

Recently I have been playing with ASP.NET AJAX RC1, and also the Ajax Control Toolkit listed on ajax.asp.net. I have to say that the control toolkit is pretty sweet. Take a look at that link to see a demo of all the controls. I will probably make another post about this soon with some examples.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will break your apps

2006-12-17T14:54:00.000-05:00

Not the ones that you build but probably ones that you have installed. After I installed SP1 I rebooted only to have a bunch of applications give me errors and die. One of them was the Dell SetPoint which I don't care about. Aversoft Sticker did the same thing but worked after I reinstalled it. The Flickr Uploadr that I was using also does not work, even after uninstall/reinstalling it.

I am sure there are more that do not work but these are the ones I have run into so far. Has anyone else had this problem?

Passing UniqueIdentifier (Guid) command parameters

2006-12-16T01:18:00.000-05:00

I am starting to use guid's as primary keys instead of incrementing int's. I have a page that needs to fill a gridview which has a select parameter of a guid. Guid is not an object type you can choose while defining your parameter so I first tried passing it as an Object type, thinking that the conversion would happen behind the scenes. It didn't. I did some research on how to make this work and found a couple of articles on how to create custom parameter types. The articles were a little confusing and I ended up not being able to figure it out. Instead I did it my way - the easy way! I passed my parameter as a string and then converted it to a uniqueidentifier in my stored procedure. In my procedure I declared the parameter as a varchar with a size of 36. You can read more about the t-sql convert function if you'd like, or just copy my example. Here is my procedure:

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[Version_Fill] @Application varchar(36) AS DECLARE @guid uniqueidentifier SELECT @guid = CONVERT(uniqueidentifier, @Application) SELECT * FROM [Version] WHERE [Application]=@guid ORDER BY ReleaseDate DESC

Here is my data source object:

<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:rushapps %>" SelectCommand="Version_Fill" SelectCommandType="StoredProcedure"> <SelectParameters> <asp:QueryStringParameter DefaultValue="0" Name="Application" QueryStringField="ID" Type="String" /> </SelectParameters> </asp:SqlDataSource>

This is the easiest way, in my opinion.

Firefox 3 Alpha 1 Release

2006-12-12T22:20:00.000-05:00

I installed it yesterday and gave it a whirl. What happened? I ended up uninstalling it and going back to 2.0. Unless you are a complete hardcore web designer and feel the need to help Mozilla out, then I would stay away from this release. My experience with it was that it did not load CSS from certain websites so I was left viewing the plain HTML. Since most sites are designed using CSS these days I was stuck viewing sites that looked like they were made in the early 90's. Another bad thing about the release is that it installs over Firefox 2. In my opinion it should have been installed along side of 2.0 so that I would have the option to run 2.0 or 3.0. Also the alpha release did not have the "Firefox" logo anywhere. It was simply the globe without the fox. Lastly it installed itself as "Gran Paradiso Alpha 1" instead of being called "Firefox".

Using Repeater ItemCommand

2006-12-12T13:50:00.000-05:00

This is very similar to Using DataGrid RowCommand but with some slight changes.

First create a repeater control and bind some data to it which ever way you like. Inside your ItemTemplate (or any other template associated with the repeater control) create a link button control (or button control, whatever you want). Set the CommandName to a descriptive name. Set the CommandArgument to your unique identifier. Mine looks like this:

<asp:LinkButton ID="btnDeleteComment" runat="server" Text="Delete" CommandName="DeleteComment" CommandArgument=<%#Eval("CommentID") %>></asp:LinkButton>

I am setting the CommandArgument to the CommentID which is databound to my repeater. Now in design view, double click on your repeater control and Visual Studio will create a method for handling the ItemCommand event. Here we will test if the CommandName is the one we are looking for and then do some action with the CommandArgument. (In my case delete a comment). This is what mine looks like:

protected void rptComments_ItemCommand(object source, RepeaterCommandEventArgs e) {
    if(e.CommandName.ToLower().Equals("deletecomment")) {
        clsComment comment = new clsComment("mediadb");
        comment.CommentID = int.Parse(((LinkButton)e.CommandSource).CommandArgument);
        comment.DeleteRecord();
        rptComments.DataBind();
    }
}

SQL Command Parameters

2006-12-05T21:07:00.000-05:00

varchar(MAX) and nvarchar(MAX) was introduced in SQL 2005. I started using these but when I added parameters to an sqlcommand I was never sure what to use as the size. I used to use int.MaxValue but I was looking at some code online today which used -1. Here is my example (I do everything inline to minimize lines of code.)

cmd.Parameters.Add("@Comment", SqlDbType.VarChar, -1).Value = _Comment;

Simple enough.

Since I do everything inline and since I rarely use the decimal data type in sql, I was having problems. My numbers kept on getting rounded off. I was too lazy to look it up at first but this week I felt the need to finally do it the right way. Turns out you can't do it inline. Here is my example (for a decimal(10,2) field).

SqlParameter HoursParam = cmd.Parameters.Add("@Hours", SqlDbType.Decimal);
HoursParam.Value = _Hours;
HoursParam.Precision = 10;
HoursParam.Scale = 2;

10 (Precision) is the total number of digits in the number. 2 (Scale) is how many of those digits come after the decimal point.

Simple also. This will probably serve as a quick reference for Googler's of the world, hope it helps.

Simple ASP.NET Tab Generator

2006-11-29T10:31:00.000-05:00

One of the tools ASP.NET should come with is a tab control. Since it doesn't I end up creating my own way to do this. I am sure there are components you can buy that do the same thing, but where is the fun in that? Instead I have created a code generator that you can use to create a "Tab Control". Once you drop it in your page make sure to put some content in each View control. Also you should specify an ActiveViewIndex for the tabViews control (usually 0).

Simple ASP.NET Tab Generator

Using GridView RowCommand

2006-11-21T14:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't used this in 6 months and had to lookup how to do it. For some reason the built-in GridView "delete" feature does not work for me (have tried it on multiple setups). Fortunately it is not hard to replicate.

First your GridView has a property called DataKeyNames. Set this to the primary key of your data source. Now in your GridView create a ButtonField. Give it some text and specify the CommandName. CommandName can be any string but keep it simple.

Next create a RowCommand event for your GridView.

Next fill in the functionality for your command. In the event method you just have to test for which command was fired. Take a look at my example, it also shows how to get the GridView row index and the primary key so that I can delete the record from my sql table.


protected void gridServers_RowCommand(object sender, GridViewCommandEventArgs e) {
  if (e.CommandName.ToLower().Equals("deleteserver")) {
    int index = Convert.ToInt32(e.CommandArgument);
    int ServerID = Convert.ToInt32(gridServers.DataKeys[index].Value);
    clsServer server = new clsServer("mediadb");
    server.ServerID = ServerID;
    server.DeleteRecord();
    gridServers.DataBind();
  }
}

You can come up with other commands, just be creative.

Web Application Stress Tool

2006-11-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

Just found this Web Application Stress Tool from Microsoft and thought I would share. I've never heard of it until today. When I get home from work I will install it on my server and check it out. I have a few sites I want to hammer :-)

Edit: Just tested it out and it is pretty basic. I still like it though. My poor wireless connection at home would never "stress" my server but I got a glimpse of the program at least. I will try it tomorrow with 6 servers running the program on my site, that should give it a better test.

.NET 3.0 Downloadable

2006-11-10T09:02:00.000-05:00

.NET 3.0 was released today. You can get all of the goodies from the Microsoft website.

I will be installing it on my home laptop along with Vista beta 2. I should be posting on this soon.

Snippet Compiler

2006-11-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

If you write lots of little applications to help get you through the day then you will find this useful. It creates a blank (C#) console project and lets you type in code real fast and run it. Saves time in loading up visual studio and creating a new project etc... You can save the code or just run it and discard when finished. I found this today and wrote a quick app with it which worked out well. Give it a try. (Snippet Compiler website)

Find Links Using RegEx

2006-10-27T15:53:00.000-04:00

I am writing a link crawler and found this useful. I found it on another site but modified it a little.

string matchlinks = @"]*?HREF\s*=\s*[""']?([^'"" >]+?)[ '""]?[^>]*?>";

This will match any <a href=""> tag, even if it has other elements in it or uses single quotes. I suggest stripping all line breaks. \r\n, \r, and \n before trying to match. For the match options I used SingleLine or IgnoreCase or IgnorePatternWhitespace. Enjoy!

Tips for developers new to the game

2006-10-23T19:26:00.000-04:00

I recently graduated from college and am now working at a fortune 500 company. Today I was given a very nice compliment that I was the strongest programmer in my department. All of this went straight to my head, of course, and so I've put together some tips for the young (.net?) developers of the world.

Read, read, read

Get a news reader and subscribe to as much stuff as you can handle. The more the better. Check it all the time, because some sites flip through news very quick. Most of the time the news is trash but you'll always find a few good articles a day. This will help keep you on top of your game.

Attend conferences, workshops, and other events

This is the best way to share ideas, meet new people, and start personal relationships that can help you during the length of your career. Not only that but you will learn more at these events than you can by reading online because the exchange of information is so much faster and richer because you can interact one-on-one with people who have experience. Go to hacker events, developer events, and related technology events. They all will bring their own level of value and will help you grow.

Become good at something

Have something that is your niche. This should be the CORE of your knowledge aka what you are known for! Perhaps it is .NET? Whatever it is make sure you know it inside-and-out. It would be best if you could belt out a few technologies (like .NET + SQL Server for example) but just start out with one.

Jack of all trades

Compliment your core knowledge with an abundance of knownledge in other areas. If you know C# for instance you can pick up PHP very quick. You don't have to know the ins-and-outs of all these other technologies but know enough to be proficient and get the job done when needed. Don't just focus on programming either. Become good with using Photoshop, Excel, Word, and other software. Being a well rounded person is very valuable.

Push the envelope

As soon as you hear of a new technology you should at least give it a go (or two). It may seem hazy to get into things that aren't totally defined yet or are out of your comfort zone but it will keep your mind active and creative. Doing something the first time is always the hardest. It usually takes me many tries to get something down to an art - and even then, you are always refining your ways. Don't be afraid to try new things! Test your newfound technologies in things you do on the side. Once you've got them down-pat is when you can bring them to the table at your job.

Work Hard

I've had jobs where I've been lazy and also jobs where I've worked hard. It makes a big difference and people will notice. If you work you ass off it will pay off. It won't happen right away so you need to be persistant. No one likes the lazy guy anyways! Don't be afraid to show-off your skills. If no one sees your work then everything you've done is for nothing. You could even end up getting fired after all your hard work (I speak from experience). Be involved in the core of what your business is doing. Do something that is meaningful and do not take the easy assignments. Communicate and share with your group.

There is my list. It's simple and plain common sense. Just so you know I am not a total n00b in the work force. I have over 6 years of development under my belt. I've seen what works and what doesn't work. I got lucky early in life and scored an awesome development job. Thanks Andrew.

Spotlight on: .NET Framework 3.0

2006-10-06T13:06:00.000-04:00

I get the MSDN Flash newsletter and every once in a while I browse through just to get an idea of new stuff that is out. In the latest newsletter there is some stuff on .NET 3.0. This is taken straight out of the newsletter:

Featured downloads...

Microsoft Pre-Release Software Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 - September CTP

Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" Community Technology Preview - Development Tools for .NET Framework 3.0

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Uninstall Tool
This article describes how to uninstall pre-release versions of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 if the typical uninstall process is unsuccessful.

.NET Framework 3.0 Webcast Series
In this series of free webcasts, we cover Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows CardSpace, and XAML.

I am a little scared to install 3.0 but I will probably cave in once I hear some cool new stuff about it. I have heard that it is .NET 2.0 with WinFX and probably Atlas built into it. When I check it out I'll share with everyone :-)

Flickr Wallpaper Rotator - Update

2006-10-03T12:10:00.000-04:00

An API key is no longer required. The user name search option is now enabled.

The download for this application has moved to my application repository. Click here to go there now!

http://www.rushfrisby.com/apps/Flickr-Wallpaper-Rotator.aspx

2006-09-30T15:19:00.000-04:00

This program is my "hack" submission for Yahoo Hackday. It rotates your wallpaper using images from Flickr.

Requirements: .NET 2.0 Framework

The download for this application has moved to my application repository. Click here to go there now!

Atlas roadmap and naming

2006-09-14T12:55:00.000-04:00

Atlas is finally going to be officially supported by Microsoft. You can read this article to find out what all is happening.

HTML Stripper Update

2006-09-06T10:51:00.000-04:00

I updated the interface so it looks a little better plus added a form to choose which tags you want removed so you don't have to edit the txt file manually.

I also added htmlStripperQuick.exe which will copy text from the clipboard, replace the tags listed in RemoveTags.txt and then paste it back to the clipboard. I figure if you put this in your quick launch toolbar it would work real nice.

The download for this application has moved to my application repository. Click here to go there now!

HTML Stripper

2006-09-01T17:15:00.000-04:00

Today I wrote a program that will strip HTML of out of a blob of text. I am posting it here in case someone else has a use for it. When you extract the archive you will notice that there are 4 files:

htmlStripper.exe - You must have the .NET 2.0 Framework installed to run this.
RemoveTags.txt - Any tags listed in this file will be removed from the blob of text when you run the program.
HtmlTags.txt - A reference list of most HTML tags.
readme.txt - Gives a description of the program.

The download for this application has moved to my application repository. Click here to go there now!

Do not write repetitive code!

2006-08-22T09:12:00.000-04:00

About 6 years ago I was doing ASP development. After a while I found myself writing classes and stored procedures that all followed the same structure. This was when I decided to stop writing "repetative" code and instead I wrote a program that would create my ASP and and stored procedures for me. I would still be using my program today except I did not want to maintain the program. Instead I've found something better to do the job! It is called CodeSmith. What you do is create a codesmith template, open it, run it, and either save or copy/paste whatever your output is.

I have create two templates which I will be sharing with you. The first one is a template which will create a C# class based on a sql database table. The second is a template which will create 5 stored procedures which your class uses to interact with the same table. The only catch is that the table must contain one field which is the primary key. When you open these templates check out the properties pane in CodeSmith. In the C# class template there is a property called ConnectionString_Name. You must set this to a named connection from your web.config file. In both templates you will see a property called SourceTable. Click on the field which will bring up the "..." button. When you click on this you can choose your datasource and select a table. If you do not have any datasources you will be able to add one.

Every time I use CodeSmith to generate this code it saves me about a days worth of work. You may also want to check out the CodeSmith template gallery. I hope you will find this as useful as I do.

Download Rush's CodeSmith templates

MD5 & SHA1 Encryption

2006-08-20T19:01:00.001-04:00

This post has been updated - more methods on MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-2 Encryption.

Encryption in .NET is pretty simple. Here I will show you two types of encryption you can use - MD5 and SHA1. I have built a simple class to do the encryption. I will just post the code and a link to my example since it's pretty easy to follow along.

using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

public class clsCrypto {
public clsCrypto() {
}
public string md5encrypt(string phrase) {
UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5hasher = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
byte[] hashedDataBytes = md5hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
}
public string sha1encrypt(string phrase) {
UTF8Encoding encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
SHA1CryptoServiceProvider sha1hasher = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider();
byte[] hashedDataBytes = sha1hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(phrase));
return byteArrayToString(hashedDataBytes);
}
public string byteArrayToString(byte[] inputArray) {
StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder("");
for(int i = 0; i < inputArray.Length; i++) {
output.Append(inputArray[i].ToString("X2"));
}
return output.ToString();
}
}

Just a reminder that if you store data that is encrypted, generally you won't be able to decrypt it unless you are a serious hacker or something. I would use this for storing passwords, discount codes, or anything similar.

Here is my example. You can download the code for this here. I am curious to try SHA512 so you might see a future post with that. Enjoy!

Yahoo API is awesome

2006-08-18T23:00:00.000-04:00

I downloaded the Yahoo API tonight. I have only used the search service which I must say is pretty nice. It took about 5 minutes to get a developer id, download the api, setup a website, and put the code to use. Check out my example. It is very simple and I think I will leave it that way for now. I am excited by how easy it is to use. Now I will show you show you how I created my example. Here are the steps:

Grab an application id from here.
Download the API
Extract the archive and look for the folder: yws-2.01\Csharp\yahooSearch\Yahoo.API\
Open Visual Studio and create a new website
In the project explorer add the asp.net folder App_Code
Copy all of the .cs files from the Yahoo.API folder to your App_Code folder, except AssemblyInfo.cs
Add a new web form to your project
Add a textbox and a button to your web form. Put a div tag below these with the property runat="server"
In your code behind file include Yahoo.API
Create a click event for your button and put in some search code.

Thats all of the steps. The C# sample included in the api is a windows app so what we did was copy what we needed to use it for a website. I copied the source files in case I wanted to modify the api. Now for the search button code I pretty much copied the code from the example search button but modified my application id and output html to my div tag. This is my code:

YahooSearchService yahoo = new YahooSearchService();

Yahoo.API.WebSearchResponse.ResultSet resultSet = yahoo.WebSearch("YOUR_APPLICATION_ID", txtQuery.Text.Trim(), "all", 10, 1, "any", true, true, "en");

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("");

foreach (Yahoo.API.WebSearchResponse.ResultType result in resultSet.Result) {
sb.Append("<a href=\"" + result.Url + "\">" + result.Title + "</a><br/>" + result.Summary + "<br/><br/>");
}

results.InnerHtml = sb.ToString();

Also I forgot to mention that I included System.Text so I could use the StringBuilder class. I hope you have as much fun with this as I will and that you are headed in the right direction now.

URL Rewriting using UrlRewritingNet.UrlRewrite

2006-08-17T15:23:00.000-04:00

To rewrite URL's I am actually going to use a component from urlrewriting.net. You will need to download a sample project from their site in order to follow along. I will run through what you will need to copy from that project to use in your own projects. I'll also show you how I am using it in my projects.

In order to use url rewriting in your project copy UrlRewritingNet.UrlRewriter.dll from the sample's bin folder to your bin folder. Also copy the "xsd" folder to your project. If your project was created from the Atlas template or if you have modified your web.config file then you will have to copy some code out of the sample web.config file. Otherwise you will be okay to copying the sample web.config file to your project.

If you are modifying your web.config file:

Find the configSections section. Copy the "section" tag from the sample to your configSections. If you don't have one just copy the entire configSections tag.
Under the system.web section find httpModules and copy the "add" tag from the sample to your httpModules section. If you do not have these sections you can copy them from the sample.
Copy the entire "urlrewritingnet" section from the sample to your web.config file. Delete everything that is within the "rewrites" section.

Now we will need to add our own custom rewrite tags. A big advantage of this component is that you can use regular expressions in your urls. This is what my rewrite tag looks like:

<add virtualUrl="^~/(.*)/(.*).aspx" rewriteUrlParameter="ExcludeFromClientQueryString" destinationUrl="~/Default.aspx?PageID=$1&Title=$2" ignoreCase="true"/>

The first wildcard I use as the Page ID. In my Default.aspx page I can then query my database and return some content based on whatever page I am on. The second wildcard can be whatever I want - I strictly use it for SEO purposes. Of couse you will have to add some error checking because your first wildcard might not be a Page ID, but you get the idea.

This component is free, easy to use, and I highly recommend it.

Yahoo! Answers API

2006-08-17T13:14:00.000-04:00

Yahoo delivers another API. This one looks VERY useful. I will check it out and make a future post on how to implement this.

Facebook API

2006-08-17T13:11:00.000-04:00

Facebook released an API on Monday. Looks like I could find some ways to use this.

Creating Atlas Update Panels

2006-08-17T00:21:00.000-04:00

I am in the middle of a project and am using Atlas UpdatePanels which I thought would make for a good post. Atlas is the codename for Microsoft's AJAX framework.

First off go to the official Atlas website: download the framework and install it. Open visual studio and in your list of project templates you will see "Atlas Web Site".

Provide a path for the project and click OK. Once created go the the project explorer and delete the readme.txt and eula.rtf files. If you look at the web.config file you will notice that there is a lot of new things added. Also you will find Microsoft.Web.Atlas.dll in your bin folder.

Now open the Default.aspx file in source mode. You can delete the script block at the bottom. Find the atlas:ScriptManager control and set EnablePartialRendering to true like this:

<atlas:scriptmanager id="ScriptManager1" runat="server" enablepartialrendering="true"/>

This will let us update content panels without posting back. In your page add a Button control with an OnClick event which we will be using later. Just below the button add an Atlas UpdatePanel. If you type "<atlas:" you will see all of the available Atlas controls. Your UpdatePanel should look something like this:

<atlas:updatepanel id="UpdatePanel1" runat="server">
</atlas:UpdatePanel>

Within your update panel type an open carrot ("<") and you will see the intellisense come up with two tags: "ContentTemplate" and "Triggers". Everything placed within the ContentTemplate we will be able to update. This is where we will put all of our asp controls. The Triggers tag is where we will catch events which will cause our UpdatePanel to be updated. I like to add my triggers first so it is easy to locate.

Within the Triggers tag type an open carrot again. You will see two tags come up. We will be using atlas:ControlEventTrigger. This control has two properties: ControlID and EventName. Set the ControlID to the ID of the Button control we created earlier. Set the EventName to "Click".

After the Triggers tag add the ContentTemplate tag and put a Label control within it. So far your code should look something like this:

<atlas:scriptmanager id="ScriptManager1" runat="server" enablepartialrendering="true"/>
<asp:button id="Button1" runat="server" text="Show me the money!" onclick="Button1_Click">
<atlas:updatepanel id="UpdatePanel1" runat="server">
<triggers>
<atlas:controleventtrigger controlid="Button1" eventname="OnClick">
</triggers>
<contenttemplate>
<asp:label id="Label1" runat="server" text=""></asp:Label>
</contenttemplate>
</atlas:UpdatePanel>

Now we are ready to add some functionality. In our Button OnClick event add something like this: (I used a C# code behind file)

Label1.Text = String.Format("{0:c}", DateTime.Now.Ticks);

Save everything and view your page in a browser. When you click the button it will update the label without posting back. Thats it! Play around with it and be creative. You will find other uses for your update panels.

The source code for this example can be downloaded here.

How to use web.config application settings

2006-08-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

In your web.config file you can define a number of key/value settings and then access them from your web page. In your web.config file find appSettings and add the following key/value like this:

<appsettings>
<add key="FullName" value="Rush Frisby"/>
</appsettings>

In your aspx file create a label control called lblFullName. In your code behind file you can then say:

lblFullName.Text = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["FullName"];