DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by spavkov

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.

error "Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a..."

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:55:18 GMT

Have you ever tried to create a user instance database from Visual Studio on SQL Server 2005 Express (or above) and got this terrible (can it be more confusing?) message: "Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in starting the process for the user instance. The connection will be closed." If you did and tried to find how to resolve this you probably Googled (or Binged) for hours without being able to find the solution that really works. Well lets put an end to that. Two simple things need to be done...

Throw Exceptions In Your Domain

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:36:55 GMT

If you have a Domain Model, you're going to have code that validates rules and checks for inconsistencies ... start with the simplest way of handling business logic errors: throw an exception.

Asp.Net vs php : Speed Comparison

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Why is the myth that php is faster than Asp.Net so prevalent? Asp.Net is faster than php, here are the facts. So many times I have heard php pushers claim that php is so much faster than Asp.Net and that Asp.Net is clunky and slow. The most annoying part is that everything I have read (that is not factless opinion), and I mean everything, says that this is wrong; but for some reason, this myth is widely accepted. It has become a religious argument that ignores the facts...

How To - A Run.GPS Widget for BlogEngine.Net

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:22:08 GMT

Putting together a widget for BlogEngine.net is fairly easy. This makes the BlogEngine.net platform very attractive to .Net programmers who can easily leverage the power of the .Net framework in extending the BlogEngine framework. Creating the widget is just a matter of subclassing one or two base classes and overriding a few members. With a WebClient control, it's easy to download content from the internet and then use the full power of the .Net framework to present it in a concise and attractive format. I've created a widget that displays the stats for a user at Run.GPS. In this article, i'll show how it's done.

Undo Within Selected

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:55:07 GMT

Today I was working on some code, nothing particularly different than any other day. I did something I have done thousands of times before, made some changes, and then needed to get previous code back. This was quickly done with undo several times, copy to clip board, redo several more and then paste. Then it hit me, why don't we have an undo within selected text? We have a search and replace within selection. Undo within selection complements the search and replace really well, and further, allows for quicker retrieval of code several edits ago. Particularly when the change was a single iteration ago in a particular location. In a sense spatial undo versus temporal undo. Hopefully this will make it into Visual Studio some day, either as a power tool or third party plug-in.

Silverlight usage of the converters from external assembly in app.xaml

Fri, 29 May 2009 09:11:08 GMT

Visual Studio designer don't show any visuals when converters from externall assembly are used in app.xaml. Find the solution here.

Undocumented feature to concatenate strings from a column into a singl

Fri, 29 May 2009 01:45:17 GMT

There are several ways to create one column with comma separated values from multiple rows. Today, I would like to show you, how to achieve this with very simple query using XML features of SQL Server.

The Dynamic Programmer - Tuple, a new type on .Net 4.0

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:00:06 GMT

If you ever played with some language that have the Tuple type I bet you miss it in .Net. Well 4.0 adds it. Let's take a look at the implementation and how to use it.

Creating a Custom Observable Collection in WPF | UX and WPF ramblings

Thu, 14 May 2009 03:16:02 GMT

One of the biggest advantadges WPF has is its Data Binding features. Data Binding can be done in several ways, but the most common is using the INotifyPropertyChanged and INotifyCollectionChanged interfaces. For simple objects, all you need to do is implement the INotifyPropertyChanged, and raise the PropertyChanged event when your properties change. When you want to bind to a collection, you will want to use ObservableCollection<T>. This collection implements both interfaces, therefore notifying you when the items in the collection change and when the items' properties change. This works great if you're using standard collections. The problem arises when you want to use a custom collection. For databinding to work with custom collections, you will have to create a new "Observable" wrapper around it.

Unit Testable Configuration Manager - Kazi Manzur Rashid's Blog

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:31:19 GMT

If you are a TDD purist, you should know that accessing file system in Unit Test is violating the rule. But in our application, our infrastructural code often requires to access the configuration values form web.config/app.config. In this post, I will show you how can create a simple wrapper class which you can use in your unit tests without hitting the file ...

Implementing Forms Authentication in Silverlight Application

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:10:06 GMT

If you are developing a site in Silverlight with login page and other Silverlight pages and if you want to implement Forms authentication where you need to authenticate user based on the credentials entered in Silverlight based login page and display the user name in other Silverlight pages after logging in. Read this article to achieve same kind of functionality as Forms authentication in normal ASP.NET website. Take a look at it..

Fun with extension-methods

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:46:12 GMT

Having some fun linking extensions-methods.

A cool puzzle game for programmers, written in Silverlight

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:31:13 GMT

The goal of the game is to program a robot to pick up stars. The puzzles are submitted by other users, and ranked by difficulty based on votes.

Ruby inspired C# Extension Methods for natural DateTime operations

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:16:02 GMT

FluentDateTime is a open source library of Ruby inspired C# Extension Methods for easier and more natural DateTime handling and operations in .NET that allows you to write code like this: DateTime.Now + 1.Week() + 3.Days + 14.Minutes(); 3.Days().Ago(); 5.Days().After(new DateTime(2000, 1, 1)); DateTime.Now.NextDay(); DateTime.Now.WeekAfter(); DateTime.Now.Midnight(); DateTime.Now.SetTime(11, 55, 0);

How to Create a Drag & Drop / Move, Zoom In & Out Content Control

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:46:03 GMT

As the Headline says, I will show you how to make a Drag and Drop / Move Content control. for this example I will use a canvas and an Image. But you can easily make it more generic by using a Content Control instead of the image.

Fluent NHibernate - AutoPersistenceModel auto mapping

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:12:26 GMT

An blog post presenting Fluent NHibernate AutoPersitanceModel through simple code example

An idea on how-to avoid spam in Dot-Net-Kicks

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:16:20 GMT

The "Upcoming Stories" RSS in Dot-Net-Kicks is full of SPAM. Here's a idea on how to avoid it: Use a .NET captcha: ask questions that are difficult to guess but easy to answer. Read and Kick. It will help us all.

An excellent Introduction to Microsoft F# by Luca Bolognese (PDC 2008)

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:20:32 GMT

Learn about Microsoft's new language, F#, a typed functional programming language for the Microsoft .NET Framework. F# combines functional programming with the runtime support, libraries, tools, and object model of .NET. Understand how F# asynchronous workflows help tame the complexity of parallel and asynchronous I/O programming and how to use F# in conjunction with tools such as Parallel Extensions for .NET

Silverlight Toolkit Released on CodePlex!

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:46:07 GMT

The Silverlight Toolkit is a collection of Silverlight controls, components and utilities made available outside the normal Silverlight release cycle. It adds new functionality quickly for designers and developers, and provides the community an efficient way to help shape product development by contributing ideas and bug reports. This first release includes full source code, unit tests, samples and documentation for 12 new controls covering charting, styling, layout, and user input.

89 Ways for You to Become the Coolest Developer in the World

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:31:08 GMT

You can learn how to improve your programming skills, work better and enjoy it from this collection of advice from experienced developers.

How and when (not) to use Extension Methods in C# and .NET?

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:46:11 GMT

Lets first briefly examine Extension Methods, show some basics usages and then we will tackle some more advanced and concrete examples used to provide fluent, natural DateTime operations (similar to Date and Time operations available in Ruby on Rails).

SVN-Monitor is finally out for free download!

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 02:31:02 GMT

A full-featured .net application that integrates SubVersion, TortoiseSVN and all your checked-out folders and repositories. Use it to perform all your svn commands and monitor all your projects' activities in a single place. Access all commands from the tray menu or from the main window. This is a must-have tool for every windows+svn user!

Crack.NET - A runtime debugging and scripting tool for .NET

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:16:15 GMT

Crack.NET is a runtime debugging and scripting tool that gives you access to the internals of any .NET desktop application running on your computer. If you love Snoop and Mole for Visual Studio, you'll love Crack.NET, too. Crack.NET allows you to "walk" the managed heap of another .NET application, inspect all kinds of values on objects, and even manipulate those objects via IronPython scripts.

Fluent NHibernate - Working with NHibernate without configuration file

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:46:10 GMT

"I believe that the most important reason why NHibernate is not more widely adopted by general DEV population is exactly the "Java XML configuration" PIA feeling you have while working with it. Great news for all of us from that group: NHibernate is possible to be used WITHOUT configuration files! "