Sol 3

Extension Methods make life easier (C#)

Keith Barrows — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:43:50 GMT

I use extension methods when I remember they exist. I started getting tired of writing code to check strings for Null, Empty, Equal before using a database column when I remembered Extension Methods are there to make life easier! Some great articles/blog entries on it can be found at: Extending Base Type Functionality with Extension Methods – Scott Mitchell, 4 Guys From Rolla New "Orcas" Language Feature: Extension Methods – Scott Guthrie, PM, Microsoft ASP.NET Team In a nutshell...(read more)

I see you

Keith Barrows — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:35:14 GMT

For you my wife! I see you I see you Walking through a dream I see you My light in darkness breathing hope of new life Now I live through you and you through me Enchanting I pray in my heart that this dream never ends I see me through your eyes Living through life flying high Your life shines the way into paradise So I offer my life as a sacrifice I live through your love You teach me how to see All that’s beautiful My senses touch your world I never pictured Now I give my hope to you I surrender...(read more)

Female Power

Keith Barrows — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:56:23 GMT

While the C-5 was turning over its engines, a female crewman gave the G.I.s on board the usual information regarding seat belts, emergency exits, etc. Finally, she said, 'Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Judith Campbell, and crew take you safely to Afghanistan ' An old MSgt. sitting in the eighth row thought to himself, 'Did I hear her right? Is the captain a woman? ' When the attendant came by he said 'Did I understand you right? Is the captain a woman?' 'Yes,'! said the attendant,...(read more)

Bailout – Is it really a good thing?

Keith Barrows — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:54:43 GMT

I've been in debates with several people over the direction our President is taking us. Bailouts are not the answer. IMHO, a bailout puts the corporation into Government hands. The last I looked that is part of a Communistic political regime. Now, Obama is trying to push a Nationalized Health Care plan – yet another step towards the Government running our lives, telling us what we are worth, stripping away the American Dream. To illustrate, this is a letter from GM's CEO and...(read more)

Tidbits

Keith Barrows — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:34:25 GMT

From time to time I get a slew of links that may/should be useful to others than just myself. The quotes are from these web pages and are not of my manufacture. 40+ Essential Front End Web Developer Cheat Sheets Quote: Today more or less everyone can put a simple web page together but implementation of professional Web based Application Front Ends is not as simple as some people may think. It is a complex task requiring deep knowledge of several technologies like html, css, javascript, php, etc....(read more)

Blogging on ASP.NET Weblogs site again…

Keith Barrows — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:56:59 GMT

Just a quick blog to say I finally have Live Writer setup to post computer technology related posts to http://weblogs.asp.net/kbarrows now. I still have a few things to get setup like publishing images and files and such but that will fall in place soon. I will still be posting all topics at http://sol3.net/blogs/starpilot/default.aspx . Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

VS2008 & Win 7 x64 – Compatible?

Keith Barrows — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:08:10 GMT

Can anyone reproduce this sequence of events? I added 6 lines of code to of my data model view. I compile – no warnings, no errors, build successful. I run the app and the lines of code I added DO NOT EXECUTE! In fact, I am getting an error that my code is different than the last time I compiled. Yet, I compiled when I hit F5 to run. :( OK – remember that sometimes the temp cache can foul things up so delete the temp cache. Restart VS2008, load project, hit F5 and – what the hell? ...(read more)

VS2008 (MVC) & Win 7 x64 – Compatible?

Keith Barrows — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:49:42 GMT

I am currently developing on a Win 7 (build 7000) x64 box using the newly released MVC addition for ASP.NET. While the promise of MVC is great, the reality that this developer has been experiencing for the last 2 weeks is not at all what I expected. For instance, trying to get my routes to behave. Code: Results: Compare the data in the “Route Data” table to the “All Route” table (“Defaults” column). Now, I run it without the route debugger and this is what I see when...(read more)

Late Notice – MVC has been released.

Keith Barrows — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:39:02 GMT

New machine, new OS, new this and new that I forgot to post a blip on the hottest release from Microsoft – MVC! I’m not going to hammer on it so feel free to read the following: Phil Haack – ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released ScottGu - His free ASP.NET MVC eBook Tutorial offer Visual Web Developer Team Blog Note: To get the latest information, including tutorials, sample code, design galleries, and discuss groups, check out the official site at http://www.asp.net/mvc . You can download it...(read more)

Snow Day

Keith Barrows — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:12:05 GMT

My wife and I were supposed to go to her Doctor’s appointment today. After nearly 15 minutes of driving we had made it about a mile into a 30+ mile drive. Time to turn around and try it another day. Nasty, nasty day today. White out conditions, 8-12 inches of snow already with more on the way. Even here in Colorado where rural schools are rarely closed due to snow, the whole county is shut down. Hot chocolate, a warm fire and a couch are beckoning. But –...(read more)

MVC RC2 Released

Keith Barrows — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:26:00 GMT

Microsoft’s ASP.NET team has been hard at work. Phil Haack just blogged on the latest release of MVC – which is Release Candidate #2. Make sure to read all of the requirements as they have changed a bit since RC1. More later. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

MVC, Master Page, Extension Methods and Controlling your menu items

Keith Barrows — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:10:00 GMT

I am working on an application using MVC and discovered quite quickly that there is no documented way to control my main menu’s looks while it is in the master page. After searching for an hour or more I knew there had to be a way to overcome this without resorting to adding a code-behind file. I found a couple of java-script solutions but wanted something more robust. I queried out to several tech lists, including my favorite on http://aspadvice.com/lists and got some quick hits back. I think my...(read more)

Starting a new gig...

Keith Barrows — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:25:00 GMT

I am finally back to working with modern technologies - and for myself. I am no longer an employee of a corporation! I am so looking forward to being on the cutting edge again after a year of classic ASP and some .NET 2.0 Win Services. I can't go into too many details on what the project(s) entail but it looks like I'll be diving deep into MVC and LINQ to get to point B. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

Windows XP Pro x64

Keith Barrows — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:15:00 GMT

I am biting the bullet now. I have a desktop that is running an AMD Opteron (Dual Core) and have never run a 64 bit OS. I have Win XP Pro x64 on my MSDN subscription so decided to repave this desktop and install it. Several false starts later I finally have it up and running. Getting the drivers to work was no where near the nightmare so many have said it was. Nvidia had the x64 drivers for my geForce 6200 card and the other drivers I needed were on the motherboard's CD. MY motherboard is an ASRock...(read more)

Missed my High School Reunion :(

Keith Barrows — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:59:46 GMT

Wish I had thought to google for this. Another classmate just left me a message on MySpace and the link to my HS Reunion site . <sigh/> With all of this technology at hand it is still hard to know when periodic events like this happen. How does everyone else stay abreast of events like this? Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

Loading XML with accented characters breaks System.XmlDocument.Load()

Keith Barrows — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:29:00 GMT

It took me a bit of time but I finally found a solution for loading a XML file that has accented characters (like áéíóúâä) into a UTF-8 format. I'm loading data for a client and it ended up having a name in it with an accented e character. For the first time on this project System.XmlDocument.Load() was blowing up. With a lot of Googling I finally found a link that gave me, what I hope, is the solution for this problem. For now it is working...(read more)

Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is on CodePlex

Keith Barrows — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:18:37 GMT

The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new library in .NET that enables greater reuse of applications and components. Using MEF, .NET applications can make the shift from being statically compiled to dynamically composed. If you are building extensible applications, extensible frameworks and application extensions, then MEF is for you. CodePlex Links http://www.codeplex.com/MEF MEF Overview Blog Links http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/09/05/microsoft-extensibility-framework-released-on-codeplex.aspx...(read more)

SQL Not In Revisited

Keith Barrows — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:52:46 GMT

I always seem to struggle with a NOT IN clause when there are more than one column to compare. This, of course, comes up when I am trying to get records from one set that are NOT IN another set and the comparison has to be done across multiple columns. For instance, if I want to compare table 1 (users) against table 2 (importedUsers) and I want to see if the mandatory fields are there and *NOT* work with those that fail I usually ended up doing a cursor. But - there is a much easier...(read more)

SQL XML - TreeView

Keith Barrows — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:52:47 GMT

I sometimes forget how to do an XML output formed in a tree when dealing with a single table parent/child relationship. There is a great explanation on SQL Server Central on *how* to do this . I am mainly capturing the link and the SQL I just generated to do this. This query will drill down 12 levels at the most. Just alter the case statement (pivot) to go deeper. ALTER PROC getOrgUnitTreeAsXml AS BEGIN ;WITH OrgUnit1 AS ...(read more)

Microsoft's Velocity - Caching turned up a notch

Keith Barrows — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:28:41 GMT

Microsoft just released it's CTP-1 of a new caching product code named Velocity. It is a distributed caching technology that should add extra velocity to your ASP.NET applications. Summary: “Velocity” is a distributed in-memory application cache platform for developing scalable, available, and high-performance applications. “Velocity” fuses memory across multiple computers to give a single unified cache view to applications. Applications can store any serializable CLR...(read more)

VS 2008 and .NET FX 3.5 SP1 (Beta)

Keith Barrows — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:40:45 GMT

ALT.NET?

Keith Barrows — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:29:23 GMT

Do you know what happens when you read blogs? You mine expands, dude! Like Woaoooo... Something Scott Hanselman posted caught my attention. He posted about Alt.Net . I am now searching out all things ALT.NET to make sure my head was wrapped around the ideas in a way that makes sense to me. Pass the word... Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

Using multiple config files in one application

Keith Barrows — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:23:00 GMT

I'm supporting an ASP ( Application Service Provider ) style application for my company. Instead of putting each client's settings into a single config file, I wanted to have the main config file point to each clients configuration. After a bit of digging, I came up with a solution that works. I don't know if it is the best solution but it does work. My main config file now looks like: <? xml version ="1.0" encoding ="utf-8" ? > < configuration > < configSections > < section...(read more)

Latest build of the ASP.NET MVC source on CodePlex

Keith Barrows — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:17:00 GMT

Come and get it! If you are a MVC developer and really want to dig into the core of MVC then go directly to CodePlex and get the code ! Scott Guthrie has a LOT more details on his blog. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

DDD Ireland

Keith Barrows — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:48:15 GMT

Looking for events? Are you in Ireland on May 3rd? What better way to spend a Saturday than at an event with some funny charismatic notable characters like Plip and Sussman ! With Plip's permission I've duplicated his blog entry for this event . Developer Event? Ah go on, go on, go on. Check it out at www.DDDIreland.com Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)