DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by fintz69

Session Attacks and ASP.NET - Part 2

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:00:00 GMT

In Session Attacks and ASP.NET - Part 1, I introduced one type of attack against the session called Session Fixation as well as ASP.NET's session architecture and authentication architecture. In this second post, I'll delve into a couple specific attack scenarios, cover risk reduction, and countermeasures specific to ASP.NET for protecting against session attacks in ASP.NET

ASP.NET MVC Tip 3: Implementing remote client-side form validation

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:45:00 GMT

Client-side form validation has become a de-facto standard for modern web applications. However, there are some validation rules which cannot be checked completely on the client side, for example because the validation depends on information stored in the server database. For those rules you need to implement remote client-side form validation. This article describes how to implement this so that you don't have to write any custom javascript for new validation rules.

Automagic Time Localization

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:30:00 GMT

A trick to localize timestamps without requiring users to pick their time zone manually.

ASP.NET MVC TDD using Visual Studio 2010

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:15:07 GMT

Phil Haack announced yesterday that the tooling support for ASP.NET MVC is available for Visual Studio 2010. Troy Goode already blogged about the designer snippets (which are really really cool, just like other parts of the roadmap for ASP.NET MVC 2.0). I'll give the new TDD workflow introduced in VS2010 a take.

Should We Return Null From Our Methods?

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:15:06 GMT

I read a interesting article recently about the potential perils of Null Check Hell. The author's suggestion? Stop allowing any of your methods to return nulls, ever . No nulls returned, no null checks necessary. Problem solved, right?

Overview of .NET 4.0 features - ASP.NET 4.0 ClientIDMode

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:45:03 GMT

In pre 4.0 days, when a server control is rendered, the framework would assign an ID to the control based on the control hierarchy. For example, a textbox of id "txtTest" in a user control that is used on a page would be rendered with the ID "WebUserControl11_txtTest". Developers could use the ClientID property (ex: txtTest.ClientID) in the code behind to retrieve the ID assigned to the control by the framework. It was essential for the framework to assign the IDs this way to maintain uniqueness of the IDs on a page. In the prior example, the User Control that inherits from the System.Web.UI.UserControl implements the INamingContainer interface. Any control (either custom or a .NET control) that implements this interface would ensure unique naming scope for the child controls.

Optimizing URL generation in ASP.NET MVC - Part 1

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:46:04 GMT

Inspired by a great presentation by Rudi Benkovic I thought I would make a series of blog posts about improving ASP.NET MVC performance through URL generation. While developing an application for a project of mine I went gung-ho with expressions wherever I could. Whether it was methods in my controllers or URL generation they were everywhere. While stress-testing my app I ramped up the items on a page and noticed performance dipped significantly.

A QueryString collection for JavaScript

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:31:11 GMT

Used to Request.QueryString? It doesn't exist in JavaScript. Here's a script to create it with no other script dependencies.

ASP.NET MVC and the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:46:14 GMT

Microsoft's Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a .NET library (released on CodePlex) that enables greater re-use of application components. You can do this by dynamically composing your application based on a set of classes and methods that can be combined at runtime. Think of it like building an appliation that can host plugins, which in turn can also be composed of different plugins. Since examples say a thousand times more than text, let's go ahead with a sample leveraging MEF in an ASP.NET MVC web application.

Using AutoMapper to map view models in ASP.NET MVC

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:46:03 GMT

Mapping code between Domain Models and Data Transfer Objects/Presentation Models is often boring and tedious to write, so when I first read about AutoMapper it triggered my interest. This post takes a first look at AutoMapper, and show how it can be used to map a complex domain model to a view model in an ASP.NET MVC application.

Ditching the Micro-Optimization Fetish

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:01:02 GMT

Seems like today is the day for performance optimization talks: in String.Empty, in calls to ActionLinks, in high-performance IoC containers. But people sometimes miss the point that these are micro-optimizations: thanks God Justin tries to bring a bit of sanity in this geeky world of micro-optimization

How to improve the performances of ASP.NET MVC web applications

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:46:04 GMT

Today I stumbled upon a nice presentation that Rudi Benkovic gave last week at the Slovenian DotNet User Group, about ASP.NET MVC Performances. It is an in depth analysis of a Digg-like site and how it went from serving (on a test machine) 6 req/sec to 390 req/sec. The analysis prove the usual rule of performance optimization: no matter what you do to optimize your code, the biggest performance hit is data retrieval, and the first thing you have to optimize is always this. But apart from this obvious outcome, I just want to take out from this presentation the 3 point that are really specific to ASP.NET MVC

5 Useful Visual Studio C# Snippets - Part 2

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:01:04 GMT

I initially published 5 Visual Studio c# Snippets yesterday and it got a lot of attention and had some positive feedback, so this is a follow up that I hope would be as helpful as the first one.

Software Startup Lessons (Part 6) - Looking back at one failure

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:16:02 GMT

After a few months, we've decided to kill a project and call it a failure. Read more about the project's postmortem note in this article.

A Closable jQuery Plug-in

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:16:03 GMT

I've found it very useful to have a closeable plug-in that hide the content of an HTML element providing a visual close image cue. Almost every UI I build these days requires either closing pop up windows or even more commonly requires that items are removed and visually hidden which usually implies 'close' behavior. In addition to removing a bunch of HTML markup, having a plug-in is also quite useful for server controls especially if multiple behaviors (plug-ins) need to be applied.

Web 2.0 AJAX Portal using ASP.NET 3.5,jQuery,Silverlight,Linq,Unity

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:16:04 GMT

Learn how to build a Web 2.0 AJAX portal just like Google IG using jQuery, ASP.NET, Silverlight, Linq to SQL, Workflow Foundation and Unity

Using the ASP.NET MVC Futures AsyncController

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:31:04 GMT

Last week, I blogged about all stuff that is included in the ASP.NET MVC Futures assembly, which is an assembly available on CodePlex and contains possible future features (tonguetwister!) for the ASP.NET MVC framework. One of the comments asked for more information on the AsyncController that is introduced in the MVC Futures. So here goes!

Using complex types to make calling services less... complex

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:46:03 GMT

A detailed examination of how jQuery can call ASP.NET AJAX web services (or page methods) with complex types as parameters, to simplify the process of serializing and sending several fields of data at a time.

Lazy Loading jQuery Tabs with ASP.NET

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:46:16 GMT

This article looks at efficient use of jQuery tabs when displaying data. Specifically, it covers how to lazy-load data, so that it is only accessed and displayed if the tab is clicked.

MVC Storefront is now Kona : Screencast

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:31:19 GMT

MVC Storefront - changes directions to a flexible, pluggable Open Source community application. This screencast is all about that change and what's become of the MVC Storefront.

Content Stealing Jerks

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:01:02 GMT

I've grown somewhat accustomed to seeing my articles regurgitated on some random blogger's site and passed off as their own. Usually I just send content stealing jerk (CSJ for future reference) an e-mail asking that they provide some sort of link back to my original article and leave it at that. Sometimes they comply, oftentimes they don't. In the end, life goes on. After all, it's not like I'm going to press charges over it.

First steps with Lightweight Test Automation Framework and ASP.NET MVC

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:46:02 GMT

Microsoft's newly-Codeplexed Lightweight Test Automation Framework lets you test UI behaviors in ASP.NET applications. But what does it actually do? How does it work behind the scenes? How do you use it with ASP.NET MVC? This post explains the architecture and provides a downloadable demo project.

6 Tools To Be An Effective Web Developer

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:01:02 GMT

There has always been and probably always will be feuds over what is the best platform but what I want to show you is that those arguments are mostly irrelevant. Regardless of what platform you choose to develop on there are most of the same tools available in one form or another. The common components, for me anyway, that help me produce high quality code faster and is easier to maintain are a good IDE, easy to use unit testing and mocking frameworks, an ORM, a MVC framework, and a good JavaScript library.

Business for geeks: Naming your software company

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:31:03 GMT

A second post in the series about starting a software development tools company covering the process undertaken in picking the name of the company. Covers points to consider when picking a name for your own software brand. This isn't strictly code but might be interesting for entrepreneurial .net geeks out there.

SCOPE_IDENTITY Bug with Multi Processor Parallel Plan and Solution

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:46:02 GMT

This article is very serious and I would like to explain this as simple as I can. SCOPE_IDNETITY() which is commonly used in place of @@Idnetity has bug when run in Parallel Plan. Do your community service. Read the article. Bookmark it. Kick it and spread the word.