IIS 7 - Adjusting to the huge change.

I was rudely awakened when we finally started using IIS 7 after using IIS 6 for so long.
I found I knew what I wanted to do but could not find where the option was. I came across this tutorial as a helper

Getting Started with IIS7 (Part 1)

http://www.dotnetbips.com/articles/df885319-19cc-47b8-8808-6ed462db1de5.aspx
http://www.dotnetbips.com/articles/8ae70f79-4df3-4592-bfa7-1b31643ab891.aspx

If you have any other tutorials or tips on how to configure IIS 7 please email them to Susan Fischer susan@clinchportal.com or post them as comments here and I will approve them.

Regular Expressions - Help!!!

If you are like me you find dealing with regular expressions both powerful and frustrating.I found a couple links that may help you on your journey to build regular expressions.

Roy Osherove has a few tools here that will be useful. The first is the Regulator that allows you to build regular expression with intellisense included. The second tool is the regulazy that allows you to typein text select it and via right click create your regular expression:

http://tools.osherove.com/Default.aspx?tabid=165

The third is not really a tool but a library that helps you find regular expressions that others have created for you:

http://regexlib.com/

This posting is also available at: http://csharpguild.blogspot.com/2008/05/regular-expressions-help.html You can check out this blog for additional information related to c#

If you find any regular expression tools or other tools you find useful please email them to me at susan@clinchportal.com

Perpetual Beginner

For those just learning some of the newer technologies such as subsonic, linq, mvc, etc this is going to be fast becoming the place to go. It is definitely a blog to keep an eye on. The perpetual beginner, Jesse Naiman, will soon be a name you will remember.

Here is the link to his blog: http://alt-net-guild.blogspot.com/

Free Source Control with Visual Studio Integration

My friend Jesse Naiman sent me a recommendation for free source control for a project I am working on. I thought about writing a recommendation myself but he words it perfectly. Here is his recommendation:

This site is awesome http://www.assembla.com/

You can setup a free SVN repository (up to 500MB), and you get an amazing amount project management tools.

A couple helpful hints on SVN in case you haven’t used it.

Install tortoisesvn which will allow you to manage source control through windows explorer.

Install AnkhSVN to get svn integrated into visual studio.

escape \n in a mailto href

Here is the sample code

location.href='mailto:?SUBJECT='+escape(document.title)
+'&BODY='+escape('[[[\n'
+document.getSelection()
+'\n]]]\n\n-- '
+document.title+'\n'
+location.href+'\n'
+new Date(document.lastModified).toUTCString())

Invalid Viewstate error or Padding is invalid and cannot be removed

It seems that sometimes your application will work locally but when you put it
on a hosted server you get one of these errors. Here is an article on the issue:

http://community.discountasp.net/default.aspx?f=24&m=10014

The solution is to generate your own machinekey and put it in your web.config
Here is a tool to do it:

http://www.aspnetresources.com/tools/keycreator.aspx

Using WinMerge to compare in Team Foundation Server

Some of you are probably frustrated with the compare tool in TFS well if you like WinMerge then here is a link to help you use it as an alternative:

http://neovolve.com/archive/2007/06/19/using-winmerge-with-tfs.aspx

Visual Studio goes off in limbo

AutoRecover is a feature in VS 2005, which used for automatically saving work on a regular basis. This will be helpful when power failure or system crash. Anyway, we could turn off it in VS 2005 optionsEnviornmentAutoRecover http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa718517.aspx [AutoRecover in the IDE] If you go into Tools/Options and click on the environment tab you may see an option for AutoRecover.If not there is a checkbox at the bottom that says show all options then it will show up.When you click on AutoRecover you will notice that it tries to save your work every 5 minutes.

Trouble installing Visual Studio or .net Framework

I was having trouble installing Visual Studio 2008 after installing earlier betas of it.
Unfortunately the uninstall in add/remove programs was broken. I came across this tool and used it to remove the older frameworks. I thought I would pass it on:

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/04/08/406671.aspx

Setting User Control Properties in a Repeater

The way microsoft parses this is kind of silly but you need to ensure that you use a single quote to wrap your property values. You CANNOT place any text between the ' and < % or it will fail.

'< % # String.Format( "xsl/nav/{0}_config.xml" , DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "MenuItem_Name" )) % >'

30 Simple Steps to Creating Sandbox Test Accounts.

I struggled all day trying to use the sandbox for PayPal then I found this forum article.
Thanks to Rob McColl for posting this. I found it so helpful that I have posted it here so others could benefit from it. If you come across articles, tips, tricks let me know and I will post them as well. You can email them to me at susan@clinchportal.com or chris.williams@clinchportal.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.paypaldeveloper.com/pdn/board/message?board.id=sandbox&message.id=6035#M6035

After 6 hours of pain with PayPal support (or lack thereof) I present the following 30 step process to creating, confirming, and verifying test accounts through the broken Developer Central Sandbox.

I hope this helps other people, and that the years of life I've lost over the last several hours is worth it.

To Setup Sandbox and Get Test API Credentials:

Prerequisites:
* Create a user account to access the Developer Central Sandbox.
* Log in to the Sandbox account
* Create a Test Account of type 'seller'.
- This will throw an error message on saving, but it will still create the account. Click the Test Accounts tab to see the account it created.

Create Confirm the email address:
1. Create business test account (done in prerequisite above)
2. Log into PayPal Sandbox with test business account details created earlier.
3. Go to Profile Tab
4. Go to Email
5. Choose the email address and click 'Confirm'
6. Go back to the Sandbox Test Environment and click the Test Email tab
7. Open the email with subject line 'Activate Your PayPal Account'
8. From the email body, select the confirmation URL and paste into new browser window - it will load the PayPal site (in sandbox mode).
9. Log in with business account.
10. From the landing page, click the 'confirm email' link in the 'To Do List' box.
11. Click the 'click here if a link doesn't appear in the email' link.
12. Paste in the confirmation number from the email in step 8, and click confirm. A confirmation of success should be displayed.
13. Click Continue.

Create Bank Accounts For Test Business Account:
14. Click the Profile tab
15. Click Bank Accounts link
16. Create a fake bank account. Test Bank. Use BSB 242-200 for Australia. Any random integer for account number, so long as it's not already being used by another PayPal account. I ended up having to mash the keypad until I found an unused number.
17. Confirm the bank account by clicking the 'confirm' link after the step above.
18. Step 17 loads another page where you need to click 'Submit'.
19. Step 18 loads another page where you need to click 'I Agree'.
20. The account should now be verified.
21. Click the Profile Tab again.
22. Click API Setup
23. Click Request API Credentials
24. Select API Signature
25. Click I Agree, Click Submit.
26. Copy the details to a safe place for later reference.

Developer Central Sandbox
27. Go back to the Developer central sandbox and login with your account details created in the prerequisite section of this document (i.e., not your test business account, but your actual Developer Central Sandbox account).
28. The Test business account should now be verfied.
29. Click API Credentials tab.
30. The API credentials obtained in step 26 should appear.

Fiddler 2 plug-in for viewstate

This is useful as it decodes the viewstate for you in fiddler when you click on the page. There is also a stand-alone tool. Both are available at:

http://www.binaryfortress.com/aspnet-viewstate-helper/

If you come across some useful tools email me at chris@clinchportal.com or susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them to the blog.

Debugging Flash

I know this is not specifically ASP.NET but its something that I found a pain.
I have some flash components that interact with my ASP.NET pages. I found this tool called Flash Tracer that is a plug-in to firefox. Here is the link that describes where to get it and how to set it up:

http://hubflanger.com/flash-player-9-debug-tracer/

Enumerating SQL Servers from .NET 2.0

I ran into a situation where I was not sure of the name of the SQL Server I would be using on a hosted site. I found this code that helped to find a list of them all.

http://dotnetslackers.com/SQL/re-20320_Enumerating_SQL_Servers_from_NET_2_0.aspx

Hope this helps you too.

String Formatting Reference

I keep going back here all the time looking up the how to write format string. For this reason, I thought I would pass on the link:

http://idunno.org/archive/2004/07/14/122.aspx

Hope you find this useful.

If you have any links, tips, tricks, etc that you think the group would find useful please pass them on to me at chris.williams@clinchportal.com or chrisw_88@hotmail.com

ASP.NET 2.0 Chat that uses Membership functionality

A friend of mine Anthony Ng (http://www.funkylists.com/) sent this to me. It looks quite useful
so I thought I would pass it along.

AspxChat - generic MsAjax-based chatting control for ASP.Net 2

• Uses standard ASP.Net 2.0 Membership functionality to manage users, which allows a seamless integration into existing applications that use Membership without a single line of code
  


• Utilizes Microsoft AJAX Extensions to present a user interface in asynchronous fashion, that is: without continuous page refreshes
  


• Provide a simple administrative interface for users in Administrator role
  


• Provide a generic voting functionality with a Yes/Now poll
  


• Uses implicit localization feature of ASP.Net 2.0 to present a user interface in different languages (English, Ukrainian and Russian localization included)
  


• Uses ASP.Net 2.0 Themes feature to fine tune user interface
  


• Provide a default page with a standard ASP.Net 2.0 Login control to enable using AspxChat as a stand-alone application
  


• AspxChat is configurable with a standard web.config file (presently only 2 parameters can be customized: history depth and default name for non-authenticated users)
  

If you have any tips, tricks, coding samples or source code you think the group would find useful please email them to me at chris.williams@clinchportal.com or chrisw_88@hotmail.com

Issue Downloading Orcas

I tried downloading Orcas from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5d9c6b2d-439c-4ec2-8e24-b7d9ff6a2ab2&DisplayLang=en but part 5 seems to be corrupt.

I tried the Microsoft online Chat but was told to call tech support that told me to go to support.microsoft.com still no luck.

If anyone actually has a working version of this part or an alternate download for the alpha please email me at chrisw_88@hotmail.com For now, I am trying out the express edition at:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/future/default.aspx I am actually trying to play with SilverLight so I am hoping that the Web Developer version works with it. Please pass this on to all the C# developers you know. For more information or if you have any tips, tricks, events that you think other C# Guild members would benefit from, please email me at chrisw_88@hotmail.com

2-way databinding cascading lists within a FormView

A few people have asked me for some sample code on how to do 2-way databinding.
I found this article and it has a couple code examples:

Demo for 2-way databinding cascading lists within a FormView

Please continue to email me your tips at chrisw_88@hotmail.com and I will be placing them on either of these blogs depending on their context.

C# Guild

If you are working with C# you may want to check out the C# Guild. We are modelling it after the Fantasy World Guilds, where people meet to build and train each other, meet with like minded people and possibly help each other find opportunites and solve their problems.

Its all about comradery. You can check out the blog at: http://csharpguild.blogspot.com/

More will follow over the next few months. If you would like more information on the guild and/or would like to help out on its creation please email me at chrisw_88@hotmail.com

CSS Tips and Tricks Blog

I have noticed that people are sending me a lot of CSS Tips and Tricks and although related
to .NET are more generic. I have created a new blog at:

http://clinch-css.blogspot.com/

Please continue to email me your tips at chrisw_88@hotmail.com and I will be placing them on either of these blogs depending on their context.