DaddyCode Team Blog

Windows Server 2008 - MVC 3 - getting 404 errors from IIS 7

2012-01-27T17:17:00.003Z

Well this one got us stumped for a long time this afternoon, and not even the mighty StackOverflow could help us! We have an MVC 3 site that was running happily in dev, but when the client asked us to install it on their server (Windows 2008 SP2 (NOT R2), IIS 7.0), it wouldn't work; every View returned a 404. We had just installed MVC 3 and ASP.NET 4, so we went though all the usual suspects:

VAG-COM / VCDS in Yorkshire for Audi A4 B7 Cabriolet

2012-01-27T15:14:00.000Z

I wanted to change some settings on my A4 Cabriolet. The settings were: Turn off selective locking Turn off speed locking Turn off seatbelt warning (module 17 penultimate code flip digit to 0) Enable telephone voice control (module 77 penultimate code flip digit from 0->2) To do this you need special software and a cable to the diagnostic port. The official VAS kit is crazy expensive, but

ValueInjecter - matching nullable to non-nullable values

2012-01-18T11:46:00.000Z

Here's a little ValueInjecter plugin I wrote to handle ValueInjecter matching for properties where the name matches but one is nullable and the other is not. public class NullableInjection : ConventionInjection { protected override bool Match(ConventionInfo c) { return c.SourceProp.Name == c.TargetProp.Name &&

Visual Studio Javascript Function Folding - Code Region Outlining

2011-12-14T09:23:00.004Z

I thought to myself, as I swam through an ASP.NET Razor View crammed with Javascript functions, 'SURELY someone has made a VS plugin that does function code folding?'. Yup, Microsoft has. http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/872d27ee-38c7-4a97-98dc-0d8a431cc2ed

Visual Studio RegEx Regular Expression Cheat Sheet

2011-12-09T10:19:00.001Z

Why MS decided to use a non-standard RegEx parser for Visual Studio's Find/Replace controls, I don't know. All I do know is that I forget the syntax EVERY FRIGGING TIME in the heat of battle. So, here's the skinny: Match group definition using CURLY BRACE. Match group replacement using BACKSLASH. So to turn to *bob* use: \<{.@}\> and replace with *{\1}* NOTE the .@ is the VS '

IE8 window.location HTTP_REFERER

2011-11-15T16:31:00.001Z

Stupid HTTP variable, HTTP_REFERER. It's spelt wrong for a start. Anyway, to cut a long, stupid story short, an HTTP call invoked from a javascript window.location change will usually set the HTTP_REFERER variable on IIS because the browser sends a Referer header. I say 'usually' because it DOESN'T FRIGGING WORK in IE8. IE9, FF, Chrome, fine. IE8, nope. Sigh.

Rockalldll.dll missing / not found error - Rockall Heap Manager on Windows 7

2011-11-09T11:47:00.002Z

This week's mystery was a recurring error message in Windows 7 about a missing DLL - RockallDll.dll. It sounded dodgy, and a quick google returned about a million nasty DLL sites purporting to offer a nice shiny replacement DLL, no doubt festooned with viruses and trojans. So I didn't do that. I had to do some pretty deep searching to find out that this DLL was originally installed as part of

IntelliType Pro 8, Media Keys and iTunes 10.5

2011-11-03T00:35:00.003Z

I just got me a new MS Sidewinder X4 keyboard, and very swanky it is too. However, it requires Microsoft IntelliType Pro to work, and after installing that, I was annoyed to find that the Media Keys (Play, Pause, Prev Track, Next Track) didn't work with iTunes. Here's what I found out. iTunes control worked fine if I uninstalled IntelliType Pro, but this was no good because then I lost the

Keyboard Test utility for Windows 7

2011-10-30T19:52:00.003Z

I have a duff keyboard, but I only proved it was duff by using a little utility to test it. Unfortunately, finding a Key Press Test application for windows 7 was right nightmare! So I wrote one. Enjoy: Keyboard Tester.

jQuery Post a javascript array to ASP.NET MVC

2011-09-26T16:17:00.000+01:00

I wanted to post a bunch of ID numbers to my MVC controller, which is sat waiting with the following signature: public ActionResult UnParkLeads(IList leadIds) However, this post needed to be generated from jQuery - specifically we're sending through the data ids of entities that correspond to "checked" checkboxes in a list. So what we need was a way of iterating through the list of

Using OutputCache with PartialView in MVC 3, with programmatic invalidation usingVaryByCustom too!

2011-09-08T14:13:00.000+01:00

I've had a fun morning trying to cache partial views inside a dynamic page with MVC 3. Specifically, a partial view in a razor layout page (i.e. masterpage) that shows some dynamically generated data which I would like to hold off from regenerating for 60 seconds or so, even if the user refreshes or navigates around the site. So I create my partial view like this - here we generate the time to

MVC 3 DropDownListFor not selecting an item (Title property of model)

2011-09-02T10:23:00.002+01:00

Have you got a problem with MVC 3 where your model has a property that is definitely set, but when you use it in a DropDownListFor, the value doesn't get selected from your SelectList? Me too, and I've solved it. I had a viewmodel like so: [Required] public string Title { get; set; } public List TitleSelectList { get { var selectList = new List();

Unable to use SQL Server because ASP.NET version 2.0 Session State is not installed

2011-08-10T14:26:00.004+01:00

Setting up a new MVC 3 (ASP.NET 4) site, using SQL Session State. Got the message: Unable to use SQL Server because ASP.NET version 2.0 Session State is not installed on the SQL server But I *had* set up Session State, so this was perplexing. Turns out this was because I had only given the ASP.NET user db_datareader and db_datawriter permissions on the Session State database. Those permissions

Linq select vs Enumerable.Select()

2011-08-10T11:23:00.010+01:00

I found the MSDN docs a bit confusing with this, so here's a brief aide memoire about how to transform a list of one Type to a list of another, using Linq and also Enumerable Linq methods. In this case I'm transforming from a List of EF Entities (called promotions here) to a list of MVC SelectListItems. Standard Linq stylee var query = from promo in promotions select new

Load-Balanced IIS 7.5 Web Server ASP.NET SQL Session State problem

2011-07-13T01:43:00.004+01:00

We had a problem recently with an ASP.NET website where the users' sessions were behaving oddly - session data appearing, disappearing and re-appearing.As the site is hosted on two load-balanced webservers, I figured the problem must have something to do with that, but I was puzzled because I thought my configuration's use of a single, central, standard ASP.NET SQL Session State database would

Settings.settings vs web.config file with a web service reference

2011-06-28T12:49:00.011+01:00

I have a class library called myClassLibrary that contains a reference to a web service. The web service URL is stored in a Settings.settings file. This in turn creates an app.config file. I use myClassLibrary in a web project, and I ran into the problem that the default URL for the web service that I had specified in Settings.settings needed to be different when my web project was in our

.NET Project File - Include External CommonAssemblyInfo file

2011-06-22T11:14:00.005+01:00

I wanted to register a common AssemblyInfo.cs file in the Properties folder of my project. This file is actually external to my project, so how to do it?Add this to your csproj file in the section with the Compile elements. Properties\CommonAssemblyInfo.cs Then just strip out the [assembly: Whatever()] bits

.Net DateTime with TimeZones , UTC, DST problems

2011-05-05T15:09:00.004+01:00

Doing DateTime work with different TimeZones? Having a pain converting to UTC, dealing with Daylight Saving Time (DST) etc?Check the TimeZoneInfo class in .Net 3.5 +.

Localization of jQuery UI DatePicker with ASP.NET

2011-04-08T15:45:00.002+01:00

Hello folks! Do you want to make your jQuery DatePicker play nicely with your ASP.NET localization settings?When you set up your DatePicker inputs on the page, try this:$('.DatePicker').datepicker({ dayNamesMin: ['<%= string.Join("', '", System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.ShortestDayNames) %>'], monthNames: ['<%= string.Join("', '",

DevExpress ASP.NET Chart : Trial message problem

2011-04-06T11:07:00.004+01:00

Well this was annoying and wasted half a day! We have a registered copy of DevExpress which we use on a site for charting.We deployed our ASP.NET site to the live server.We deployed the registered DevExpress DLLs to the site bin folder.(Find them in C:\Program Files (x86)\DevExpress 2010.1\Components\Sources\DevExpress.DLL - Don't copy the *.design.dll files though)The web chart pages worked but

Free Reflector Alternative

2011-02-18T10:10:00.005Z

RedGate! Bah, and humbug. Their DB products have often come in useful for me, but they are also pretty slow and I can't help thinking that they could be a lot better. But now they've riled me! Raaargh! Reflector's forced-update feature was a bit annoying even back in the days of Lutz Roeder, but at least there was a fair idea behind it - to ensure everyone had the latest and greatest free

ASP.NET MVC 2 Freelance Contractor in Leeds, Yorkshire

2010-12-24T21:28:00.002Z

I'm a Freelance C# / ASP.NET web application developer based in Leeds, Yorkshire, UK. I've years of experience and have just finished a funky AJAX-heavy MVC2 contract with oodles of NHibernate fun and my usual attention to User Experience. Do you want to hire me? In January I'll be free to do another contract so please get in touch if you think I could help! Merry Christmas folks!

Lenovo T410 2-finger scroll edge problem

2010-12-17T22:11:00.002Z

I love my new Lenovo T410, but the 2-finger scrolling didn't seem to be working right. The area of the touchpad in which the scroll would be detected seemed too narrow. Turns out that "gesture filtering" was enabled and needed to be turned off.Go to mouse properties / ultranav / touchpad / settings / Smart Check Settings / Gesture Filtering

Castle ActiveRecord / NHibernate Update Event Interceptor to Log Dirty Property Changes

2010-12-15T16:14:00.004Z

Man I love the Castle Project documentation. Or at least, I would if I was a robot with a brain the size of a planet and an unlimited amount of time on my hands. Sadly I'm a human and find the whole thing impenetrable.All I wanted to do was to intercept the NHibernate entity update event so that I could log the changes made. With kudos to this dude and this dude, here's how I did it:1. In my

MVC File Upload - Using Uploadify with ASP.NET MVC 2

2010-12-06T10:08:00.007Z

Uploadify is ace for performing file upload and image upload, but ASP.NET MVC docs were lacking, so I hope this helps someone. Critical points addressed here include:Uploadify flash upload button is ugly so we use CSS to make it invisible and fake an HTML button under it.The Uploadify flash upload doesn't pass the ASP.NET session and authentication cookies naturally, which we want for recognition

Simple Jquery Lightbox

2010-11-26T11:39:00.002Z

Wrote some code that I didn't end up using, but it's a shame to bin it :)Simple lightbox using Jquery UI dialog widget:function LightBox(imgSrc, imgTitle) { var img = $(''); $('body').append(img); img.attr('src', imgSrc); img.load(function() { var lightBox = $('

'); lightBox.dialog({ autoOpen: false, height: img.height() + 50, width: img.width() + 50, modal: true, title :

Duffs Lodge

2010-11-12T23:47:00.002Z

We stayed at Duff's Lodge, Beaufort Estate nr. Beauly, Inverness-shire. Nice.Would just like to say that the Priory Hotel in Beauly makes the worst sunday roast in the known world.On the plus side, food and drink at The Cawdor Tavern is bloody lovely.Apart from that, the road to Skye from Inverness is gobsmacking, and Glen Affric is beautiful.That is all! Back to the C# shenanigans.

Beef Stew

2010-11-12T23:43:00.003Z

Man make Stew! Stew good. Stew good for 3 people easy.400g Beef cubes.6 Mushrooms4 Potatoes1 Leek1 Onion3 Large carrots600ml Beef StockSimmer tatties, leek and carrots for 15 mins.Meanwhile, fry onion, beef and mushrooms for 10 mins.Add stock to beef pan, then add the veggies.Simmer the lot for 45 mins.Nyom! Simmer longer and slower for added nyom.

SharePoint 2010 Static Web Part to read Page Properties

2010-10-28T15:11:00.004+01:00

• Create a new page property by creating a new Site Column• Edit the Page content type and add the new Site column• Now all pages will have the new property to edit• Create your web part to read the Page Property, like try{ if (SPContext.Current.Fields.ContainsField("Your Page Property Name") && SPContext.Current.Item["Your Page Property Name"] != null) myString = SPContext.Current.Item

Documenting C# ASP,NET Code Projects and Solutions

2010-10-27T15:22:00.002+01:00

We all know we should be using ///

and /// tags in our code to document it properly, right?The cool thing about that is that you can then generate an XML file from Visual Studio with all your code comments in it. To do that, right-click on your Project in Solution Explorer and choose the "Build" tab. Check the box marked "XML documentation file" and voila - next time you build,

Getting Schema Information from SQL Server

2010-10-20T10:15:00.002+01:00

As an aide-memoire to myself and anyone else who cares, here is a (growing, unfinished) list of the various ways you can get schema data and metadata out of SQL Server.1. INFORMATION_SCHEMA ViewsSELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLESSELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS2. sys_objects3. sp_tables, sp_columns

Sharepoint 2010 Page Properties - Push Changes To Sites and Lists

2010-10-18T11:04:00.004+01:00

I'm a bit confused, and it's no wonder. I'm trying to add a custom metadata field to the Page Properties of all the Article Pages on my Publishing Site, and all its subsites. However, when I made the change by creating a Site Column in Sharepoint 2010 Designer, and adding it to the Article Page Content Type column list, the column did not turn up on my subsite pages.Then I noticed that when

Delete a User from the ASP.NET membership database

2010-10-01T17:22:00.002+01:00

Here's a sweet stored procedure to delete an ASP.NET user by only passing through a UserName, and not the 4 obscure arguments that the aspnet_Users_DeleteUser sproc requires.CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[DeleteUser] @UserName nvarchar(50)ASBEGINDECLARE @Error int;DECLARE @UserGUID uniqueidentifier; BEGIN TRAN SELECT @UserGUID = UserID FROM aspnet_Users WHERE UserName = @UserName; DELETE FROM

Sharepoint 2010 Global Navigation Hide First Item (Collection Tab)

2010-09-28T11:20:00.003+01:00

I'm branding up a Sharepoint 2010 site at the moment and one thing that stuck in my craw was the Global Navigation. It shows the subsites and pages fine and dandy, but it also sticks the root site collection as the first item in the menu. Now, you can probably remove it programatically with a solution like this, but I just wanted to do it with some style tweaks.So just stick this in your custom

SharePoint 2010 - Deploy a Custom WebPart

2010-09-27T10:15:00.004+01:00

Build a release version of your web part to create a .WSP fileCopy the WSP file to the target serverOn the target machine, ensure you have correct SPShellAdmin permissions for the Sharepoint Management PowerShell: Add-SPShellAdmin –UserName DOMAIN\YOUR_USERAs per this excellent article:- Add-SPSolution c:\your.WSP- Install-SPSolution –Identity your.WSP –WebApplication http://yourSPInstance -

Develop a custom editable Visual Web Part (WebPart) for SharePoint 2010

2010-09-24T10:49:00.009+01:00

I wanted to create a web part for Sharepoint 2010 that would let an editor add a block of free-form html to a page, but wrapped up in a nicely formatted HTML container of my choosing. I also wanted the web part to include some custom properties to allow the user to select some permutations for the HTML container (colour, position etc.). The key thing was that when the editor is amending the

Change / Remove Audi A4 Wheel

2010-09-12T16:58:00.002+01:00

Although a CODING GOD, I am admittedly a mechanical weenie. So I just spent about an hour changing a wheel on my Audi cos it had a puncture on my one of my new front tyres, grrrrr. Here's what I learnt.1. All the kit is located in under the boot/trunk floor, on either side of the spare wheel.2. Take careful note of the layout of the stowed jack and tools, because they are impossible to put back

CampTune vs WinClone for BootCamp Partition Resize

2010-09-10T00:17:00.004+01:00

Hello! I have a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard and Windows 7 running from the same drive via BootCamp. I made a 32Gb windows partition originally, planning to keep all my big windows files on a separate drive. Sadly, 32Gb is still not enough for the windows C drive when you factor in the pagefile, windows update / install files etc.Therefore, I had to increase the size of the Windows partition

The Girl Who Wrote A Shopping List

2010-08-29T20:02:00.000+01:00

It was raining as Mikael Blomkvist took the first stop off the tunnelbana at Likstoerp and visited the late-night AftonMarket. He bought pickled herring, appelsaúce, two pakkenpanes of wholegrain bread, a strudel, some milk, Sverigen cheese, a packet of raisins, three pepparsausage Billy Pan pizzas, a sponge, some shoelaces, a coathanger, some poptarts, a tube of Sensodyne Pro-Enamel toothpaste,

ASP.NET MVC 2 - Force Password Change

2010-08-19T11:00:00.004+01:00

How to force the user to change their password when they log on? Here's how. This assumes you're not using the Membership model's User Comments field, because we're going to use it to store a flag. You're going to want to put 'using System.Web.Security;' at the top of your files cos we use the Membership classes a lot.First define a nice enum somewhere as I'm scared of string literals.public enum

ASP.NET MVC Email Validation Attribute using Regular Expression

2010-08-19T09:38:00.006+01:00

You want MVC 2 to automatically validate user-submitted email addresses? Stick the following class in your project:using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;public class EmailValidationAttribute: RegularExpressionAttribute{ public EmailValidationAttribute() : base(@"^([\w\!\#$\%\&\'\*\+\-\/\=\?\^\`{\|\}\~]+\.)*[\w\!\#$\%\&\'\*\+\-\/\=\?\^\`{\|\}\~]+@((((([a-zA-Z0-9]{1}[a-zA-Z0-9\-]{0,62}[

JS Framework Roundup #834543

2010-08-17T01:57:00.013+01:00

If you're a jaded Ajax monkey like me you'll have spent an age fighting the likes of Duffle, jSeraph and DOMinic trying to get cross-domain block blending right but with unsatisfactory results, either because of unspeakably low-grade filter belling or just the usual HIB/JSTFU squirrel poll chronlocks. I'll save you the hassle of surfing gitbox, mashStash or dumplocker for a better solution,

ASP.NET MVC 2 Controller - Use Custom Attribute to intercept call to Action

2010-08-11T10:38:00.007+01:00

I was thinking that it would be good to have certain MVC Actions run some common code every time they are called. Naturally we could just call a common method on the first line of our Action methods, but that would not be MVC sexeh. After all, we use special Attributes such as [Authorize] and [HttpPost] to intercept the Action, so why not roll our own?Microsoft have done the hard work for you -

ASP.NET 4 Session State asp_regsql

2010-08-10T10:02:00.002+01:00

Erm, are Microsoft being deliberately obtuse or what? asp_regsql.exe runs a wizard for membership and profile storage but utterly fails to offer a pretty GUI option for creating SQL Session State storage. Noooo, that's hidden away in the command line options. This does the trick:C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319>aspnet_regsql.exe -ssadd -S yourDbServer -E -sstype c -d

Share desktop with other users / view computer remotely

2010-08-02T14:05:00.001+01:00

How come I'm the last to find out about Microsoft SharedView, which is free, excellent, and works over the internet like a charm? Because I've got my head in a bucket, that's why.

Sharepoint 2010 - Disable / Turn off "Check In" / "Check Out" and "Approval" requirements

2010-08-02T11:24:00.004+01:00

I found that the requirement to check out my master page and CSS files was becoming a pain, every time having to check them back in and approve them too. Clearly I don't need to do this while I'm developing a site and nobody else is on the system.I thought there would be some kind of master setting for this in Central Administration or Site Settings, but my investigations suggest this is a

SharePoint 2010 error: site master page setting currently applied to this site is invalid

2010-07-15T17:18:00.003+01:00

Ugh, Sharepoint 2010. ANYWAY. If you see this error "site master page setting currently applied to this site is invalid" it's probably cos you need to do the following things:- Set the UI Compatibility Mode of the MasterPage to 4- Check in the MasterPage- Publish the MasterPageThat first bit foxed me. To do this, you have to:- Site Actions > Site Settings- Galleries > Master pages and page

C# delegate reminder

2010-07-08T08:51:00.008+01:00

I can't be the only person who forgets how to set up a multicast delegate handler EVERY SINGLE TIME I need one. I guess it just feels messy the way you have to declare the delegate, then create an instance of it, then hook up methods to it, then create an invocation method to call the InvocationList....Anyway, here's a cheat sheet for a typical ASP.NET page or control implementing a multicast

Sql Server Agent Copy File To remote server on LAN

2010-06-28T12:33:00.000+01:00

A little batch file that worked for me, to copy a file from one windows server to another on the same LAN.NET USE Z: \\nearbyserver\c$ /u:nearbyserver\myuser mypasswdXCOPY c:\my.csv z:\ /YNET USE Z: /DELETE

O2 Mobile Broadband Dongle Connection Manager Woe

2010-06-14T09:57:00.000+01:00

O2 sucks with my Huawei E160 yada yada. The O2 Connection Manager software just would not connect this morning, with a "Failed To Connect" and "Check your network coverage and user profile" error. This may be cargo cultish but the solution I found was to:- Uninstall O2 Connection Manager- Delete the Cellular Profile from Control Manager / Network Connections- Restart the machine- Reinstall O2

iPhone iPlayer Click To Play Stopped Working

2010-05-25T20:05:00.002+01:00

Hi! I LOVE my iPhone 3GS. I also LOVE BBC iPlayer. So imagine my horror when one day I clicked on a radio show to play and it didn't work anymore! I pressed on the "Click to play" triangle, the screen flickered, but the standard Quicktime thingy didn't appear. Nada, zip. Same for TV shows.At first I thought it was a problem with my wifi but no. Turned out I'd somehow turned off PlugIns in the

SQL Server 2005 - Snapshot Publishing Fun!

2010-04-21T11:06:00.002+01:00

I tried to set up Publishing from my local SQL Server but it reckoned that the server name I was using was an alias. It also suggested that I use it's 'proper' server name, which I recognised as being the machine's name from ages ago before I changed it.Turns out when I ran SELECT @@SERVERNAME , it was returning the OLD name.The fix was to run this script (found here):-- Use the Master

Convert DataTable to Excel (XML format XLS file)

2010-03-24T16:15:00.010Z

I see a thousand ASP.NET developers wanting to output an Excel-format document based on a lowly .NET DataTable.I see people trying to output in CSV and then running into problems with Excel misinterpreting the cell datatype formatting.I see people wanting to create an Excel Workbook with more than one Worksheet.So, I present this! A little standalone class that lets youcreate an Excel document (

iPhone or Android

2010-01-29T10:05:00.000Z

ASP.NET GridRow - Get Cell when you don't know the index - using HeaderText, DataField, SortExpression etc.

2010-01-21T10:35:00.005Z

Sometimes you want to reference a cell in a gridview row, but you don't know its ordinal index, so Row.Cells[x] is no good for you. In this circumstance it would be nice to say something like "just get me the cell from the column with the HeaderText value 'Price'".Voila: public static int GetCellIndexByFieldHandle(this GridView grid, string fieldHandle) { int iCellIndex =

A JQuery function to set the value of all input controls which have an ID containing a given string

2010-01-21T10:21:00.002Z

function setAll(idFilter, value) { $('input[id*=' + idFilter + ']').each(function() { $(this).val(value); }); }JQuery has some superduper wildcard attribute selectors like *= (contains), ^= (begins with) and $= (ends with). More here.

iPhone on Orange - Cellular Data Network problem

2010-01-19T09:42:00.002Z

I have an iPhone 3GS on the Orange UK network. It stopped being able to access the internet by any means other than wifi. 3G, Edge, GPRS - none of it worked.I phoned Orange support - they said that a Carrier Settings update had screwed up the configuration. Normally, you can manually configure your phone in the Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network menu, but the Orange carrier

Addictive Drums + Reaper + Roland TD3 VDrums + MIDI UM-1G USB

2010-01-03T17:23:00.002Z

Maybe you're a daft sod like me that doesn't read the instructions, but I had a few hurdles setting up this combo. So here's some tips.1. Attach the UM-1G unit MIDI OUT cable to the MIDI OUT socket on the TD-3.2. Install the UM-1G drivers in Windows and then attach the UM-1G USB cable.3. Download ASIO4ALL v2 and install.4. Install Addictive Drums.5. Fire up Reaper.6. In Preferences > Audio > MIDI

LogiTech S530 Keyboard + Mouse For Mac - On Windows

2010-01-03T17:17:00.002Z

Quick one - if like me you're using a Mac with Bootcamp and wondered if your Logitech S530 keyboard/mouse combo would work okay with Windows (and Win 7 in my case) - the answer is yes. It works fine out of the box.Even better news is it works with the S510 drivers (SetPoint suite) if you download them off the Logitech site here. When you do that all the cool shortcut buttons work as intended -

HttpHandler EnableEventValidation Error

2009-12-22T09:45:00.004Z

I wrote a HttpHandler to do some crazy thing or other. Put it in web.config's like this:Had to handle it in IIS7 too (or integrated pipeline mode on my workstation), so had to stick it in the / section like this:

Dynamic Linq OrderBy - Sort Field known only at Run-Time

2009-10-29T11:13:00.005Z

A common issue with my LinqToSql stuff is the need to do an OrderBy on an IQueryable a la:myQueryable = myQueryable.OrderBy(item => item.mySortField)However, often you won't know the sort field until runtime, e.g. for a dynamically sortable grid.One solution is to use the DynamicQueryable library provided by MS. It lets you do string-based dynamic querying like so:myQueryable =

AjaxControlToolkit Accessible Tabs

2009-10-28T12:51:00.004Z

Can't believe it but MS forgot to make Tabs in the Ajax Control Toolkit accessible via the keyboard. Okay, they provide an access key property, but what about just being able to tab to the tab (ho ho) and press enter to open?My solution is a snippet of JQuery to iterate through all the tabs and update the HeaderText of the TabPanel, turning it into a fake Html Anchor. Works fine in FF3 and IE6+

JQuery and setting checkbox to checked except disabled ones....

2009-10-15T15:57:00.003+01:00

Got a master checkbox that you want to control the toggling of a bunch of other checkboxes in a container (but only non-disabled ones)? Want to use JQuery to make it SUPER EASY?$('#chkMasterCheckbox').click(function(event) { $('#divContainer input[type=checkbox]:enabled').attr('checked', $(this).attr('checked'));});Oh yeah baby.

Natural Sort Compare with Linq OrderBy

2009-09-04T14:59:00.013+01:00

Having "fun" with IComparer when trying to do OrderBy in Linq with a custom sort? Me too. I wanted to sort some rows from a DB table by a string 'filename' field. The standard Linq (and SQL) OrderBy(item => item.sortProperty) sorts the strings like so: image1.jpg image200.jpg image30.jpg image4.jpgBut because I am a human being, I don't want that. No, instead I wanted them sorted

ASP.NET Web Form Code Blocks

2009-08-26T12:12:00.004+01:00

Just found this neato summary of all the different ASP.NET web form code-block / data-binding syntax options, i.e. <%= , <%# etc.http://quickstarts.asp.net/QuickstartV20/aspnet/doc/pages/syntax.aspxIt was nice to put a name to the different syntax types :) Also, I didn't know about the ability to register C# variables inline i.e ,

Running VS2003 on Vista Business with debugging

2009-08-07T13:47:00.004+01:00

It's a pain in the arse!1. Install VS20032. Install .NET 1.1 SP1 (download from MS)3. In Control Panel > Classic View > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features On or Off : IIS > Web management Tools > IIS 6 Management Compatibility IIS > Web management Tools > Management Console IIS > World Wide Web Services > Security > Basic Authentication IIS > World Wide Web Services > Security >

Ironic Ads

2009-07-30T15:12:00.000+01:00

Moh! Funneh.

“Label For”, Selects and IE6

2009-07-30T15:09:00.002+01:00

Good accessible sites use LABEL tags to describe the purpose of other controls on the page; for example a login control should have LABELs in it that tells the user which textbox is for the Username and which is for Password. To be completely groovy the LABEL should also have a FOR attribute in it that explicitly declares which control it refers to, like so:Username

Interviewing IT Development Candidates

2009-07-07T16:07:00.001+01:00

Man, I've pondered on the best way to do this so many times, and according to Joel, I've made many of the classic mistakes in the past:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.htmlWhat a great site.

Faking and Mocking: HttpContext and HttpSessionState

2009-06-30T16:41:00.005+01:00

HttpContext.Current is all well and good until you want to do unit tests on your business logic, and they explode because there's a reference to the Session collection somewhere, which returns null because you're not in a web context. You get to thinking that your business logic should be context-agnostic anyway, and so you want to provide your own context objects for Session, Items, User etc.So

Indexing SQL Server 2005 Temporary Tables

2009-05-28T15:05:00.003+01:00

Simple really - if you create a large temporary table in your sproc, you may need to index it to improve performance on queries you subsequently run on it, e.g.CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX IX_blah ON #YourTempTable (YourPKCol)

SQL Server performance and statistics

2009-05-22T10:43:00.002+01:00

Queries started running slowly on your SQL Server? Maybe your db statistics need updating.A quick and dirty way to do this for all tables in your DB is the sp_updatestats sproc.

Walk like an Egyptian

2009-04-27T13:05:00.005+01:00

Ruth and I just got back from a jolly holiday in Egypt. Here's what we found.El Gouna is a nice, safe, gated town about half an hour's drive up the red sea coast from Hurghada.The Moevenpick El Gouna is a nice hotel complex composed of several "clusters" of rooms set around a number of lagoons and pools. However, some clusters are nicer than others. We initially got put in cluster 7 in a grim

Parse CSV files with the MS ODBC Driver

2009-04-27T12:57:00.004+01:00

Easy way to read CSV files in .NET just like connecting to an SQL table - just use the standard Microsoft Text Driver.public DataTable GetData(string FullPath) { string strPathWithoutFileName = Path.GetDirectoryName(FullPath); string Name = Path.GetFileName(FullPath); DataSet dsData = new DataSet(); System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection conCsv = new

SqlMetal + Visual Studio Jollity

2009-04-09T16:00:00.004+01:00

Whack the following code in a .bat file, register it with Visual Studio's "External Tools" under the Tools menu, and call it whenever you want to regenerate your LinqToSql ORM goodness:@ECHO OFFECHO # GENERATING "MyProject.Classes.ORM" CLASSES - THEY MUST BE CHECKED OUT FOR THIS TO WORK!ECHO."C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bin\SqlMetal.exe" /server:localhost /database:MyProjectDB /

960 CSS FTW

2009-04-08T14:30:00.002+01:00

I like this: http://960.gs/Might make prototyping sites easier.

Undocumented SQL Server Stored Procedures

2009-03-31T16:53:00.002+01:00

This article documents some groovy system stored procs:http://www.mssqlcity.com/Articles/Undoc/SQL2000UndocSP.htmSprocs include stuff like "FOR EACH DB/TABLE DO X" and "GET QUALIFIED OBJECT NAME".Mucho useful. Now why the hell are they secret?

Yearbook

2009-03-12T17:18:00.003Z

Immortalized forever: read the names and weep...http://www.electraisd.net/alumni/display_class.aspx?y=1993Look at the hairstyles going back to the fifties... long may this website prosper.

Embed images in your web DLLs

2009-03-12T16:56:00.007Z

You can embed all sorts of stuff into an assembly - javascript, css, pdf etc. Here I quickly detail how to embed an image file.1. You have a solution with a web project and a separate class project2. In Visual Studio, drag the image you want to embed into your class project3. In the Properties window of the Image, select Build Action: Embedded Resource4. Add a new class to the project, call it

Resolve Virtual Path From Physical Path (ASP.NET)

2009-03-12T13:33:00.004Z

Quick code snippet to help people who want to derive a Virtual (web) path from a Physical (file) path:string strVirtualPath = VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~/" + strPhysicalPath.Replace(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath, "").Replace("\\", "/"));VirtualPathUtility FTW!

.NET Regular Expression Reminder

2009-03-05T09:31:00.004Z

I must be dense - I *heart* regex but every time I need to use one in .NET, I spend about 5 minutes trying to remember what the right grouping character is whether I need to escape it or not which Regex class to start with what the right terminology is for getting the sub-matches out of the match etc. Which is weird cos when I was king of perl I could do this stuff lickity split. So I guess MS

Fun around Hogwarts

2009-01-26T13:06:00.002Z

Last week Ruth and I drove oop north for a weekend in Northumberland.We stayed at a "luxury" B&B called The Old School at Newton-on-the-Moor. It was cute, and Kath and Malcolm were great hosts. However we felt a bit restricted by the usual mom n' pop B&B issues like breakfast being available only for an hour in the morning, and being locked out of the place between 11 and 4 in the day. Also our

2008 Product Roundup

2009-01-06T10:42:00.002Z

Hi Zootfans, and a happy new year to y'all!Someone just left a comment on one of my posts saying it helped them out, so I feel satisfied enough to continue this most unrewarding job :)So, a quick round up on some material stuff I bought, in case it helps anyone out:Toshiba Regza 37" LCD Television (2007 model)SUCKS. Do not buy. How does it suck? Let me count the ways. Rubbish remote control range

Bunscape

2008-04-09T15:51:00.003+01:00

I have the only google-recorded usage of the word Bunscrape, which describes the activity of taking an uncooperative rabbit for a walk on a lead. Contrast this with a Bunwhirl, which is the alternative activity of twirling said rabbit around in the air on the end of the lead in a manner reminiscent of the film Kes. If somebody could commit a Bunwhirl to video, including a successful bid for the

Callbackia - The land before Ajax

2007-12-11T14:53:00.001Z

Okay maybe I'm wilfully ignorant but did you know that ASP.NET 2 had asynchronous client-server callbacks afore this AJAX lark began to make our lives so... rich and fulfilling? And from what I've used of them, they are a lot more practicable than the ginger stepchild Ajax.Net PageMethods that I covered previously.So in essence, here's the gen.1. Any Asp.Net Page or Control can expose itself to

ViewState Mayhem

2007-12-11T14:41:00.000Z

I made a portal app that had little draggable, dynamically loaded ASP.NET webcontrols that you could move around a dashboard. All was fine and dandy until I needed to handle control events in these draggable controls. See, when I moved a control, the viewstate got all munged up and controls started restoring each other's data. WHY WAS THIS SO?Turns out that by default, ViewState is maintained NOT

Of ASP.NET Ajax PageMethods and Men

2007-07-05T11:13:00.001+01:00

[11 Feb 2010] Since I wrote this, I would use the following method to call PageMethods from JavaScript: http://encosia.com/2008/05/29/using-jquery-to-directly-call-aspnet-ajax-page-methods/I've been having fun with ad-hoc AJAX calls using ASP.NET Ajax recently. And when I say fun, I mean in the sense of "no fun at all". Partly due to crap documentation and a million blog posts with example code

ScottGu Snogging Time

2007-06-15T14:09:00.000+01:00

1.5 days banging my head against a brick wall - ViewState not being loaded for dynamically added controls. ScottGu sorted it out:http://scottonwriting.net/sowblog/posts/2129.aspx

GridView Row-Click

2007-04-16T11:59:00.003+01:00

A simple way to add "select on row-click" functionality to GridView without causing Event validation errors: protected override void OnRowCreated(GridViewRowEventArgs e) { base.OnRowCreated(e); if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow) { e.Row.Attributes["onClick"] = "this.style.cursor = 'wait';" +

Roman Holiday

2007-04-09T21:27:00.000+01:00

Sarah and I went to Rome for Easter 2007 - Friday to Monday. Wow! What a city. We saw loads of amazing stuff that really blew our minds. We think we have archaeological history in Britain - but in Rome it's still standing! Amazing.Anyway, click this post's title if u wanna see pics.Just want to give mad props to the hotel we stayed at: The Mecenate Palace. This is conveniently located within

What I Done For Christmas

2007-02-06T00:46:00.000Z

I done broke my armI done crashed my motorbike*I done quit my job for no apparent reasonLife is so weird to begin with, and then suddenly it gets weirder without warning. You think that surely some fundamental law of the universe will stop you from stepping further out of the boundary, but no! It's not necessarily good out there - and I don't advise you all to go, but it is different.* Okay can I

PHP4.4 and Apache2.2 on Windows XP

2006-11-04T21:21:00.000Z

Had loads of fun trying to set PHP 4.4 and Apache 2.2.3 up on my XP machine. After making the required PHP mods to the httpd.conf file, Apache would not restart with an "Operation Has Failed" dialogue. Running httpd.exe -t from the command line gave me the following:httpd: Syntax error on line 115 of C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/httpd.conf: Cannot load C:/PHP/

Fog Gone!

2006-10-29T19:21:00.000Z

So the other night I rode my bike down the A64 to my friend's house, and it was v. dark, and lo - my visor foggeth up and I could not see a bleedin' thing.So I thought that was the end of my winter bike fun. However, turns out that my X-Lite X601 helmet features a Pinlock-compatible system. Basically this means you can buy an 'insert' which looks just like a cheap bit of perspex which fits inside

Some Product Reviews

2006-10-25T16:04:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd take a second to give some mad props to various software products I've been using recently.First off, thanks to Innovasys for their nifty DocumentX and HelpStudio2 applications. These have allowed me to write professional-quality .NET 2.0 documentation for NetBuild CMS. DocumentX automagically collates all the XML comments that I've put in my code via VisualStudio and includes them

Gnews

2006-10-12T22:25:00.000+01:00

Here's the news, news shrews.BikeI bought a 1999 Honda CBR600F FX in Black n' Silver n' Yeller. And it's pretty good. Scary fast. Makes a hell of a lot of clattery noises but apparently that's normal. Always starts first time. Wish it had a clock though, I never know what time it is!House MoveI done moved to Tadcaster near York. It's RUBBISH. Be moving again soon!Wharfedale 21" CRT Television

Motorbike / Motorcycle Training

2006-06-20T18:10:00.000+01:00

So for some reason I decide I wanted to learn to ride a bike! A proper 500cc bike that is, so I booked a course with West Pennine Motorcycle Training in Blackburn, UK. I got 4 days of tuition and then did the test on the morning of the 5th day. I passed, yay! It wasn't easy but it was pretty amazing seeing as I never rode on a bike before.Big thanks to Alan and Kevin from the course. And if

Visual Studio Solution Statistics

2006-06-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

Usysware's DPACK is cool and amongst other things, can tell you how many lines of code you've written in your giant .NET projects :)

Cookies in .NET 2.0

2006-03-08T09:27:00.000Z

Here's some stuff you need to know when using Cookies in .NET 2.0 :1. To check if a cookie exists, see if Request.Cookies[CookieName] is null. DON'T CHECK Response.Cookies in this way just to see if a cookie exists! Doing this, if the cookie does not existAn empty "browser-session" cookie with name of CookieName is created in the Response.Cookies collection.The cookie created above is copied to