Tree Rat Fishing » .Net Development

IE 8 broke my ASP.Net Menu

jeff.story — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:22:01 +0000

Last night I upgraded to Internet Explorer 8, thinking that I wanted to be on the “latest and greatest” version of IE. I should have known better.

About 10 minutes before a customer demo of a project I have been working on for a while now, I realize that it has broken my ASP.net AJAX Controls menu. I didn’t want to but I had to reschedule the meeting. After a little bit of tinkering and searching, I found a solution to the problem. Insert a meta tag to force the browser to emulate IE7. To do so, use the following in our code:

        1: <head>

       2:   

       3:   <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

       4:   <title>My Web Pagetitle>

       5: head>

I haven’t found any good explanation of why this happens other that the usual “standards based “ browser stuff.

If you can explain it.. Leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: ASP.Net Menu,IE8,Standards Based Browser,Internet Explorer 8

So you need to create a new aspnetdb database

jeff.story — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:34:06 +0000

If you do any development with ASP.NET you will run into the aspnetdb database. This database is an essential component to the membership and webparts framework.

If you are a developer like myself, I find that I add a number of test users (and data) to the database and don’t want the data being moved to the production application. You really have 2 options, delete the data out and hope you get it all, or start with a fresh db and add the needed accounts.

I won’t go through the first option because I usually just opt for the second. It is a much cleaner approach in my mind. To create a new database you can use one of the following commands executed at a command prompt from the “C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\” directory:

Launch the wizard and go through the steps.
aspnet_regsql.exe

Create a database on a remote server using your current credentials.
aspnet_regsql.exe -S -E

Or you can get crazy and create a database on the local server, only to be used for profiles, and authenticate with the current logged on user.
aspnet_regsql.exe -A p -E

To get all the options and switches aspnet_regsql.exe -?

Hopefully this information will help you when you are deploying your next application.

Technorati Tags: ASP.Net, aspnetdb, membership, webparts

Using Fiddler with Localhost traffic

jeff.story — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:50:22 +0000

Fiddler is an indispensable web application development tool. For those who might not know what Fiddler is, it is a tool that allows you to see the complete request and response between your browser and the web server.

I am afraid that many developers may dismiss it as useless when they are trying to troubleshoot .Net development because it doesn’t show the traffic between the the web browser and the development web server that listens on localhost.

While this page has a few solutions to the problem. The solution can be solved easily by adding a period after “localhost” in your URL.

Instead of http://localhost:1234/MyApp/…,
use http://localhost.:1234/MyApp/… ( notice the extra dot after localhost).

sometimes the little changes make all the difference.

UPDATE: Another solution would be to use the Hostname of your machine instead of “localhost”.

Technorati Tags: Fiddler, .Net Development

Disable Caching on an ASP.Net Page

jeff.story — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:32:26 +0000

I have been working on database driven ASP.Net site lately and have been having problems with the browser caching pages variables. This is causing issues when the user uses the back command to navigate to the previous page instead of using the provided command button to return to the page they need.

In order to prevent the page from being cached and force it to be loaded as a new page each time, add the following code to the Page_Load event :

VB.Net:

   Response.Buffer = True
   Response.ExpiresAbsolute = Now().Subtract(New TimeSpan(1, 0, 0, 0))
   Response.Expires = 0
   Response.CacheControl = "no-cache"

C#:

   Response.Buffer = true; 
   Response.ExpiresAbsolute = DateTime.Now.Subtract(new TimeSpan(1, 0, 0, 0)); 
   Response.Expires = 0; 
   Response.CacheControl = "no-cache";

So simple, yet so effective.

Technorati Tags: VB.Net, Caching, Page Load

Enabling "Agent XPs" on SQL 2005

jeff.story — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:06:01 +0000

Chances are that if you have just done a fresh install of SQL 2005 you will get an error when you try to create your first SQL 2005 maintenance plan. This error tells you that the “‘Agent XPs component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server” and refers you to your system administrator or the SQL Books Online.

In order to enable the “Agent XPs” component. Start up SQL Management Studio and click the “New Query” button on the tool bar. Execute the following script in the query window (on the right hand side of the screen) .

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;

GO

RECONFIGURE;

GO

sp_configure 'Agent XPs', 1;

GO

RECONFIGURE

GO

This SQL script enables the advanced configuration options then turns on the “Agent XPs” component.

You are now free to create your SQL 2005 Maintenance plans.

Technorati Tags: Agent XPs,SQL,SQL 2005,Maintance Plans,SQL 2005 Maintnance Plans

How fast does your website load?

jeff.story — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:05:38 +0000

Do you have the answer? Pingdom does with their new “full page test” tool. With this tool, you enter you website URL it loads up your page including all images, and JavaScript as if a user went to your site. It then presents you with your individual file load times, in the order that they would be downloaded.

How fast is your site?

Technorati Tags: Pingdom, Load Times, Webmaster Tools

Reset a lost ASP.Net membership password

jeff.story — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:43:53 +0000

I have been doing a lot of development work lately and found myself in a pickle today. I was close to finishing a project that relied on ASP.Net membership a few months ago and for reasons that I won’t go into I had to put it on hold until now. A lot can happen in a few months, like for instance, you can loose your admin password that you were using. Being sure I used something that I could remember easily I locked myself out. So I Googled a cure to my woes.

I found a few posts that pointed to programmatic ways of resetting the passwords, one was to write VB code while another said to run a few SQL stored procedures. But I found a product called membership manager by Quality Data that filled all my needs and more.

As the title implies, membership manager allows you to create, update, delete all aspects of you ASP.Net membership enabled site as long as it is using the SQL provider. Within minutes of downloading the demo and watching the video, I was able to put the control on a new page of my test site and give myself access to reset my lost password. As you could imagine I was relieved.

I haven’t dug into the product much more than my initial need, but I like everything I have seen so far. I am sure this program will become part of my ASP.Net toolkit.

Technorati Tags: ASP.Net Membership, ASP.Net, Membership Provider, Lost Password

Data Generator…

jeff.story — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 05:14:55 +0000

I have always hated coming up with bogus data to fill a development database. After putting in the names of all your co-workers, friends, family, and cartoon characters (everybody has Mickey Mouse in their development database), I still need more data. I found a tool on Benjamin Keen’s website.. the Data Generator. This tool lets you choose the column and type of data you want and it will produce up to 200 rows of data that you can import into your database. Good stuff.. Thanks Ben.

Technorati Tags: Data Generator – Programming – .Net Development

AJAX tutorials..

jeff.story — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 05:04:18 +0000

As I am doing more Web Development these days, I am wanting to take the leap into doing more “Web 2.0″ development and implement more AJAX technologies to enhance what I am doing.

Well the staff at AJAX matters put together a list of over 130 AJAX Tutorials from around the web. I have found it to be good information as I am trying to take the step into these AJAX technologies.

Technorati Tags: AJAX – Web Development

.NET Framework 3.0 Released by Microsoft

jeff.story — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 03:59:23 +0000

.NET Framework 3.0 has been released!

The .NET Framework 3.0 has officially been released by Microsoft! You can download the new .NET Framework 3.0 components here:

For Windows Vista users will find that the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components are installed by default.

The Readme for the released version of the .NET Framework 3.0 is available here. If you have a previous CTP installed, please be sure to review the uninstall instructions. If you have questions about installing the .NET Framework 3.0, please post your questions to the .NET Framework Setup Forum.

Technorati Tags: .NET – .NET 3.0 – .NET framework – .NET Framework 3.0 – Microsoft – Visual Studio