Multiple Default Buttons on a single asp.net Form

When in need of multiple default buttons on a single form. I set the onKeypress event to handle the postback if user hit on the "Enter" key. This works great to set a default button for any input control.

Verdadera Felicidad: Proverbio Chino

"Si quieres felicidad por una hora, toma una siesta.

Si queires felicidad por un día, ve a pescar.

Si quieres felicidad por un mes, cásate.

Si quieres felicidad por un año, hereda una fortuna.

Si quieres felicidad por toda una vida, ayuda a los demás."

Proverbio Chino

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month, get married.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help others. "

Chinese Proverb

Kentico Error: Unable to cast object of type 'ASP.cmstemplatelayouts_blankmasterpage_ascx' to type 'CMS.PortalControls.CMSAbstractLayout

While working with Kentico CMS I have came across this annoying error.


Unable to cast object of type 'ASP.cmstemplatelayouts_blankmasterpage_ascx' to type 'CMS.PortalControls.CMSAbstractLayout

This is due the fact that the website is currently precompiling or related with a pre-compilation error with the website.

I normally fix this error my restart IIS or the app pool for the website.

Hotmail Embedded Images in HTML email not working

With one of my recent projects going live I experienced an issue with hotmail email client not showing the emails sent by my application correctly. Especially embedded images in the email. These images were replace by a gray box "i_safe.gif" making the email look bad. This was only happening in hotmail. Again Microsoft had to be special.
Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange Outlook etc was rendering the email perfectly fine.

Hotmail just need to have additional information in the email LinkedResource object.

Setting the properties LinkedResource.ContentType.Name and LinkedResource.TransferEncodig fixed this problem.

backImageResource.ContentType.Name = "dress_back";

backImageResource.TransferEncoding = TransferEncoding.Base64;
Here is my code example that work the emails working.

// Create the html AlternateView

AlternateView htmlView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(template.Body, null, "text/html");

// Add Linked Resources for the embedded images

LinkedResource frontImageResource = new LinkedResource(Utility.GetImageStream(DressFrontView, ImageFormat.Jpeg), MediaTypeNames.Image.Jpeg);

frontImageResource.ContentId = "dress_front";

frontImageResource.ContentType.Name = "dress_front";

frontImageResource.TransferEncoding = TransferEncoding.Base64;  

 

LinkedResource backImageResource = new LinkedResource(Utility.GetImageStream(DressBackView, ImageFormat.Jpeg), MediaTypeNames.Image.Jpeg);

backImageResource.ContentId = "dress_back";

backImageResource.ContentType.Name = "dress_back";

backImageResource.TransferEncoding = TransferEncoding.Base64;  

 



// Relate resources with AlternativeView

htmlView.LinkedResources.Add(frontImageResource);

htmlView.LinkedResources.Add(backImageResource);

After adding the ContentType.Name and TransferEncoding the e-mails displayed corrently in hotmail.

Flash uploading large files to ASP.NET: HTTP 500 Error

If you are having trouble uploading large files via flash or standard asp.net form its probably because there is a max request length set in the machine.config file. Max request length by default is set to 4MB.

When exceeding the max request length you get a HTTP 500 error code.
If you check the Application Event viewer on the server side you might see errors such as this:

Event code: 3004
Event message: Post size exceeded allowed limits.
Event time: 10/24/2008 5:11:39 PM
Event time (UTC): 10/24/2008 10:11:39 PM
Event ID: 640ae5c3a03349b18112b5289fd09989
Event sequence: 12
Event occurrence: 3
Event detail code: 0




To solve this problem override your web.config with the following configuration element.

Also update the executionTimeout to allow more time before it shuts down the request.


<configuration>

<system.web>

<httpRuntime maxRequestLength="11000" executionTimeout="60" />

<!-- 50MB max request size-->




More information can be found at the MSDN site

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e1f13641(VS.71).aspx

IE7 very picky with Javascript & Json: IE counts null objects.

I just came across with another debugging situation with javascript code in IE7.
IE7 takes in consideration null objects.

For example, below is a JSon array of objects.

var markers = [
{
'abbr': '1',
'latitude':33.029764,
'longitude':-97.090090,
 'dealer': {
    "companyName": "Armstrong Office Interiors","address1" : "3205 Dwyer St","city" : "Flower Mound","state" : "TX","website": "www.armstrongofficeconcepts.com","phone" : "469-568-6648", "address2": "", "zipCode": "75022" , "fax": "(469) 293-6602" , "email": "jarmstrong@armstrongoffice.com" , "dealerType": 1 , "distance": "3.0" , "showcase": "N" , "locationId": "19830" , "contactName": "Armstrong Office Interiors" , "gsa": "Y"}
,
 'wp':'n'
}];

In this case as you can see there is only 1 object.
If you do markers.length, you get a total of 1. And that's correct.

No lets say we add a comma "," to the end of the first object.

var markers = [
{
'abbr': '1',
'latitude':33.029764,
'longitude':-97.090090,
 'dealer': {
    "companyName": "Armstrong Office Interiors","address1" : "3205 Dwyer St","city" : "Flower Mound","state" : "TX","website": "www.armstrongofficeconcepts.com","phone" : "469-568-6648", "address2": "", "zipCode": "75022" , "fax": "(469) 293-6602" , "email": "jarmstrong@armstrongoffice.com" , "dealerType": 1 , "distance": "3.0" , "showcase": "N" , "locationId": "19830" , "contactName": "Armstrong Office Interiors" , "gsa": "Y"}
,
 'wp':'n'
}
, // Added extra comma here.
];

run markers.length again and now you will get a count of 2.
In firefox you will still get a count of 1.

OnItemCommand event does not fire on Repeater

After breaking my brain into species figuring out why the OnItemCommand event was not firing for my repeater, I finally come to very simple & stupid conclusion.

You need to rebind the repeater on the Page_Load event every time.
I was only binding the repeater if(!Page.IsPostBack) { // Bind Repeater }...

Binding the repeater in the Page_Load event took care of the issue.

      <asp:Repeater ID="repAvailableFilters" runat="server" OnItemCommand="repFilters_ItemCommand">

            <HeaderTemplate>

                <ul class="style-1">

            </HeaderTemplate>

            <ItemTemplate>

                <li>

                    <asp:LinkButton ID="lbtnAddFilter" runat="server" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("ID") %>'

                        CommandName="AddFilter"  ><%# Eval("Name") %></asp:LinkButton>

                        

                </li>

            </ItemTemplate>

            <FooterTemplate>

                </ul>

            </FooterTemplate>

        </asp:Repeater>

ToString() Number format

To write a number in a formatted numeric format. Use the 'N' argument in the ToString() method.

int n = 1000;

Console.WriteLine(n.ToString("N"));

// Will produce

1,000.00

// If you don't decimals 
Console.WriteLine(n.ToString("N0"));

// Will produce
1,000

Control 'GridView1' of type 'GridView' must be placed inside a form tag with runat=server.

I ran across this error when trying to export the grid view data to excel.
I do have a form tag setup runat=server. But it continue to fail.

Solution: Create an HtmlForm object and add the grid view to the form in code.

string style = @" ";

           Response.ClearContent();

           // Create form tag

           HtmlForm form1 = new HtmlForm();

           form1.Controls.Add(gvData);

           Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "myfilename.xls");

           Response.ContentType = "application/excel";

           StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
           StringWriter header= new StringWriter();

          
           HtmlTextWriter htw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);

           gvData.RenderControl(htw);
          

           // Style is added dynamically

           Response.Write(style);

           Response.Write(sw.ToString());

           Response.End();

Delete svn folders /files Recursive Subfolders batch file

Create a batch file with the following code to remove all svn files + folders from your trunk.


FOR /F "tokens=*" %%G IN ('DIR /B /AD /S *.svn*') DO RMDIR /S /Q "%%G"


Visual Studio WebSites vs Web Projects

I am having a hard time right now dealing with a huge VS.Net 2008 Website.

We are using a CMS Solution which contains many features for the site.  Navigation through source files in the VS.Net IDE seems to be slower and slower. This is due the fact the compiler continues to recompile the modified files as you make changes. I prefer to work with Web Application projects because I am more in control with the compilation and I actually we a compiled dll instead of hundreds for assemblies for vs.net websites.

One of the solutions to fix this problem is to remove the CMS features that I am not using so that the website can compile faster. However, this is not an option based on client feedback.

 

My recommendation is that if you intend to have a large site, use Visual Studio .Net Web Application Projects instead of Websites. Trust me!

Common Phone validator RegEx , E-mail validator Regular Expression

I use custom validators to validate my forms email and phone numbers.
In most of the public website that I developed I use this two common javascript functions to work with ASP.NET validators.

<asp:textbox id="txtPhoneNumber" maxlength="13" runat="server"></asp:textbox>

<asp:customvalidator id="valPhone" runat="server" cssclass="ErrorLabel" errormessage="* required" clientvalidationfunction="validatePhone" controltovalidate="txtPhoneNumber" validateemptytext="true"></asp:customvalidator>

function validatePhone(sender, args)
{
if(args.Value.length > 0)
{
   var ex = /\(?([0-9]{3})\)?[-. ]?([0-9]{3})[-. ]?([0-9]{4})$/;
   var re = new RegExp(ex);

   if(re.exec(args.Value))
   {
       args.IsValid = true;
   }
   else
   {
       sender.errormessage= "* invalid";
       sender.innerHTML= sender.errormessage;
       args.IsValid = false;
   }   
}
else
{
   sender.errormessage= "* required";
   sender.innerHTML= sender.errormessage;
   args.IsValid = false;
}
}

function validateEmail(sender, args)
{
if(args.Value.length > 0)
{
   var ex = /^([a-zA-Z0-9_.+-])+@([a-zA-Z0-9_.-])+\.([a-zA-Z])+([a-zA-Z])+/;
   var re = new RegExp(ex );

   if(re.exec(args.Value))
   {
       args.IsValid = true;
   }
   else
   {
       sender.errormessage= "* invalid";
       sender.innerHTML= sender.errormessage;
       args.IsValid = false;
   }   
}
else
{
   sender.errormessage= "* required";
   sender.innerHTML= sender.errormessage;
   args.IsValid = false;
}
}

How to override .NET validator error message font color

I hate the red color in the asp.net validators using the inline style attribute.

If you create a css class defining your color will do no good since the inline style will override your set color.

Instead of setting the FontColor Property in every single control, create a css class with the following code:

.error {
color:#e95e31 !important;
}

This will look like this My Error Message!

Error starting rails WEBRick server - ActionController::Caching::Fragments::MemCacheStore (NameError)

I go into error when trying to update my gems this week. After an unsuccessful gem update I found my self with the following error when trying to run my WEBRick server.


c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.0.2/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:263:in `load_missing_constant': uninitialized constant
ActionController::Caching::Fragments::MemCacheStore (NameError)


I checked to see if my memcached-client was installed and it was there. I compared with another developer and the same files were there. After unsuccessful debugging I took the choice to uninstall the entire ruby language and also rails framework.

I follow this tutorial http://tubecaption.com/watch?v=c0jR_hptpdA that demonstrate the order of how to uninstall / remove your gems.

Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its depend

I deployed a site that was using the AjaxToolKit and had references to the System.Web.Extensions.

I found this error Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its depend

This is due that it could not find that assembly System.Web.Extensions or System.Web.Extensions.Design in the bin or the GAC folder C:\Windows\assembly.

I solved this error my installing the ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 package from Microsoft.
You can download it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ca9d90fa-e8c9-42e3-aa19-08e2c027f5d6&displaylang=en


This msi installs in your GAC (C:\Windows\assembly) the correct assemblies System.Web.Extensions version 1.0.61025.0

MSBuild Error with Web Application Project : errorMSB4019

On windows server 2003 I am using CruiseControl.net (CCNet) to create builds of my application. However, I experience an issue when compiling a web application project (WAP).

This is the reported error:

errorMSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

Probably because with vs.net 2005 and vs.net 2008 you need the Web Application Project extension to get the web projects work just like vs.net 2003.

I fixed this error buy installing the Web Application Project Extension from Microsoft. You can download it here.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/0/6/906064ce-0bd1-4328-af40-49dca1aef87c/WebApplicationProjectSetup.msi

This msi takes care of putting the missing MSbuild files required for compile web application project files.

No 802.11g WIFI in Dallas, TX Suburns

With my current relocation to Lewisville, Texas relocation process, I have found myself stuck with WFI 80211b network everywhere I go. I can’t believe this NO G WIFI! I used jiwire.com to search for WIFI and HotSpots so that I can work. Until I with my placed setup with Internet I am stuck working from Starbucks, Panera Bread, Barnes & nobles etc. But all these places have 80211b networks. Some of them have G but requires an ATT account or pay for 2 hours of wifi. I have T-Mobile and I am having a really hard time getting fast connects.

See the results from jiwire.com

http://www.jiwire.com/search-wifi-hotspots-general.htm?radius=5.0&venue_group_id=0&radius_unit=mi&latitude=33.007591&longitude=-96.974252&address=2325+S+Stemmons+Frwy&city=Lewisville&city_id=131871&state_id=44&state=TX&country_id=1&country=US&zip=75067&hotspot_name=&location_type_id=0&technology_id=0&pay_free=&provider_id=0&ssid=&jump_letter=&wisp=&limit=&startnum=1&num_per_page=&tab=5&&result_display=list

I keep on asking and no one knows what I am talking about. I talked to someone at Starbucks and they are like “Yeah, we just got new equipment from ATT for the WIFI” and guess what? It’s a 80211b connection! What good of an upgrade, uh?

So if you are around the Lewisville, Texas or Flower Mound, Texas Area and you are in need of High speed WiFi, be prepare. Make sure you spend some time thinking of where you are going to be going for your HotSpot.

Time Ago in Words for .NET C#

I saw the need for a C# version of the time_ago_in_words function in Ruby. I translated the code below into C# from my existing post I published for Ruby.

static string TimeAgo(DateTime time)
{
    DateTime startDate = DateTime.Now;
    TimeSpan deltaMinutes = startDate.Subtract(time);
    string distance = string.Empty;
    if (deltaMinutes.TotalMinutes <= (8724 * 60))
    {
        distance = DistanceOfTimeInWords(deltaMinutes.TotalMinutes);
        if (deltaMinutes.Minutes < 0)
        {
            return distance + " from  now";
        }
        else
        {
            return distance + " ago";
        }
    }
    else
    {
        return "on " + time.ToString();
    }
}


static string DistanceOfTimeInWords(double minutes)
{
    if (minutes < 1)
    {
        return "less than a minute";
    }
    else if (minutes < 50)
    {
        return minutes.ToString() + " minutes";
    }
    else if (minutes < 90)
    {
        return "about one hour";
    }
    else if (minutes < 1080)
    {
        return Math.Round(new decimal((minutes / 60))).ToString() + " hours";
    }
    else if (minutes < 1440)
    {
        return "one day";
    }
    else if (minutes < 2880)
    {
        return "about one day";
    }
    else
    {
        return Math.Round(new decimal((minutes / 1440))).ToString() + " days";
    }
}

You can download the complete source here: http://www.box.net/shared/3fmhllxq8g

Hide Submit button to prevent double click using JavaScript in .NET

Here is snippet of JavaScript to hide the submit button to prevent users from double-clicking on the button multiple times causing several server requests.

What I like to do is hide the submit button and show a message to notify the user that the action is in progress.

This is my front-end code. I have an image button that OnClick is submits an order.

<asp:ImageButton ID="btnPlaceOrder" runat="server" Visible="False" OnClick="btnPlaceOrder_Click" />
<div id="process_message" style="display:none;">
<p> Processing your order...</p>
</div>



The code-behind looks like this:


btnPlaceOrder.Attributes.Add("onclick", "this.disabled = true;this.hide(); $('process_message').show();" + ClientScript.GetPostBackEventReference(btnPlaceOrder, null) + ";");



Flash unable to request swf files from another subdomain within the same web server.

Flash unable to request swf files from another sub-domain within the same web server.

I just experienced an issue with flash loading other swf files in the same web server but requesting from another sub-domain.
For example:
http://www.mywebsite.com/flash/shell.swf is requesting http://mywebsite.com/flash/game.swf

The crossdomain.xml is not issue. This is configured to allow * all access.
The website path is provided to shell.swf via a param. If I change the param to provide “http://www.mywebsite.com” it will work when the user is using www.mywebsite.com. This is very weir because everything is stored in the same location is just an issue with host headers.
I solved this issue my simply providing the current url host header to the shell.swf via the param.

So if the user is using “www” I will use www.mywebsite.com. If the user is using “origin.mywebsite.com”, then flash will use origin.mywebsite.com.
I am not sure 100% why flash is unable to request files from other sub-domains. But this was the quickest solution to this problem.

Strip numbers from String : C# .NET Remove numbers from string

Here is a simple function I created to strip/remove numbers from a string.
I used the regular expressions to check if a char is number.
I choose to use regular expressions than using the Double.TryParse() because I feel RegEx are faster then the TryParse function. I could be wrong but at this point is doing the job.

public string StripNumbers(string input)
{
    Regex regEx = new Regex("[0-9]+");
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    foreach (char a in input)
    {
        if (!regEx.IsMatch(a.ToString()))
        {
            sb.Append(a);
        }
    }

    return sb.ToString();
}

The next steps will be to test performance and find out what method is faster to check for IsNumber().

The transaction manager has disabled its support for remote/network transactions. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8004D024)

In .Net this exception occurs when using the TransactionScope.


using (TransactionScope ts = new TransactionScope())
{

}


Follow this instructions on all database servers and web servers to configure properly the MSDTC service.

First verify the "Distribute Transaction Coordinator" Service is
running on both database server computer and client computers
1. Go to "Administrative Tools > Services"
2. Turn on the "Distribute Transaction Coordinator" Service if it is not running

If it is running and client application is not on the same computer as
the database server, on the computer running database server
1. Go to "Administrative Tools > Component Services"
2. On the left navigation tree, go to "Component Services > Computers
> My Computer" (you may need to double click and wait as some nodes
need time to expand)
3. Right click on "My Computer", select "Properties"
4. Select "MSDTC" tab
5. Click "Security Configuration"
6. Make sure you check "Network DTC Access", "Allow Remote Client",
"Allow Inbound/Outbound", "Enable TIP" (Not required if the client machine and remote machines are in the same domain)
7. The MSDTC service will restart.

On the client computer use the same above procedure to open the
"Security Configuration" setting, make sure you check "Network DTC
Access", "Allow Inbound/Outbound" option, restart service and computer
if necessary.

On the SQL server service manager, click "Service" dropdown, select
"Distribute Transaction Coordinator", it should be also running on
the SQL server computer.


Is this does not solve the issue, check the web server to ensure if DTC is enable.
1) Go To Control Panel
2) Add Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components
4) Select the Application Server and Click on the Details button
5) Ensure that Enable DTC Service is selected.



Additional Reading about MSDTC here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Transaction_Coordinator

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684146.aspx

C# Get Person Age In Years By Birth Date ( DOB )

Here is quick method for C# to get the age of a person given the birth date.

public int GetAge(DateTime dob)
{
    // Get year diff
    int years = DateTime.Now.Year - dob.Year;
    // Add year diff to birth day
    dob = dob.AddYears(years);

    // Subtract another year if its one day before the birth day
    if (DateTime.Today.CompareTo(dob) < 0) { years--; }
    
    return years;
}

ASP.NET LinkButton does not work in FireFox as the DefaultButton

I recently discover that LinkButtons do not work in FireFox as the form's default button to trigger the form submit on the Enter keystroke.

I tried doing this:

this.Form.DefaultButton = this.lbtnLogin.UniqueID;

And no luck.
I also tried
and this also did not work.

But here is more info to solve this issue.
I worked around by making my button and ImageButton instead of a LinkButton.


http://kpumuk.info/asp-net/using-panel-defaultbutton-property-with-linkbutton-control-in-asp-net

Bookmarking with Flash and Javascript

Bookmarking using Flash

To bookmark a page from a Flash call, flash needs to call an external JavaScript function in your page to actually do the bookmarking any browser.

But here is the trick....

In order for the bookmarking prompt window for example in IE to show up the focus needs to be outside the flash object. So you need to set a focus to a DOM element outside flash.

Here is an example script that works.

function bookMarkPage(url, title) {
// set focus to a DOM element, otherwise it won't work.
$('flash_container').focus();

switch(BrowserDetect.browser){
case "Firefox":
   window.location.hash = url;//set the hash value
   alert("Please press 'Ctrl + D' to bookmark this page.");
 break;

 case "Explorer":
   window.external.AddFavorite(url, title);
 break;

 case "Safari":
   alert("Please press 'Ctrl + D' to bookmark this page.");
 break;

 case "Opera":
   // Create document element dynamic and invoke
   var bookMark = document.createElement('a');
   bookMark.setAttribute('rel','sidebar');
   bookMark.setAttribute('href',url);
   bookMark.setAttribute('title',title);
   bookMark.click();
 break;

 default:
   alert("Please bookmark this page manually.");
 break;
}
}

The problem with video captions today?

What’s the problem with adding closed-captions to online videos up until today?

As I dig more into the online video closed-captioning market and get more convince that TubeCaption.com has the yet the best web editor for adding captions to your captions.

You see the #1 problem with the websites today such as Google Video Captioning, dotSub.com, YouTube.com, veoTag, and many others is that they force the user to use minutes and seconds. The user does not want to remember or even set the start and end time for the captions. That’s too painful. I have tried it and I hate it! Adding captions should be more simplified and super easy to use. Everyone knows that adding captions is not as easy as it looks. So, that’s why you have to provide the best out of the web for these users. Features like, copy and paste, resizing, drag and drop, delete, etc are small features that makes the user experience a much better one.

This is why I am very passionate about TubeCaption.com. On top of rewarding the users that provide the captions with money (cash $), we are trying to make a better and a more pleasant experience when it comes to adding captions (closed-captions) to their favorite videos. Try the caption editor here to start playing with the “captionizer” and add captions in seconds.

Video captions will take video viewing, searching, and of course the advertising to another level. This is the next step to online video viewing. The users will be able to find exactly what they are looking for just by simply entering short keywords that are found somewhere in a video with captions.

Oh, I am forgetting, TubeCaption.com is 100% free and will always be. Every can add captions, comments, transcripts, and etc to any online video. At this point only YouTube.com is supported but with good response from the public we will be able to add support to other video providers.

Give it a try and let us know what you think.

IIS Error: You have attempted to execute a CGI, ISAPI..

I setup a new asp.net 2.0 application under IIS web service and I come across this error:

The page cannot be displayed
You have attempted to execute a CGI, ISAPI, or other executable program from a directory that does not allow programs to be executed.


When you get this error it usually means that you have not set execute permissions to "Scripts only" under the "home directory" tab in your website properties. When creating a new website the value for execute permission is set to "none". Changing to "Scripts only" will solve this problem.

Amazon website down??

Just when to amazon.com and to find out that there website is down.

Why?

TubeCaption.com Videos with Closed Captions

It’s been a very good journey working on my latest website TubeCaption.com.
I started this experiment site with my friend Alex Le. I took on this challenge primary to learn something else other than .NET. Yes, I started to learn ruby on rails. We started this project 2 months ago to be exact. Our dedication was just part-time since we both have real jobs. However, the project got more and more interesting (actually a lot more fun than work) that we spend more and more time on in and in 3 occasions we coded through the night. No we are so happy that we can at least provide a beta version out in the web so that users can start experimenting with TubeCaption.com.

I learned a lot working with Alex as a team. We both worked remotely and we did pear to pear programming in our laptops over IM.
Early in the game I had the opportunity to chat with Rohit Kumar, new CIO for the Chicago Sun-times newspaper (http://www.topix.com/com/hlr/2008/02/rohit-kumar-named-stmgs-new-cio) at an i.cstars event. Rohit and I had a great chat about online video broadcasting and advertising. Up to today videos are only searchable by the title and the description. Some companies are trying tagging the videos with keywords so that searches and ads are more targeted and related to the video content. But with TubeCaption.com you can take this to the next level. Our videos are not just searchable by the title, description, and tags but also by the entire video content. One of my first videos I added captions was a music video by 3 Doors Down (Without you). Two (2) minutes after my captions were published the ads next to the video were about 3 Doors down music rings. Then I experiment with the movie trailer from Iron Man and same thing. A minute later the ads next to the video displayed a video ad for the new Hulk movie. How cool is that?
I believe TubeCaption.com has lots of potential.

I am personally going to use it to record my own videos, upload them to YouTube, and add captions to provide teaching and how to for the i.cstars community of interns and alumni.
What’s great about TubeCaption?
One nice feature about our site is that we share the revenue with you!
Once you have created an account us, you can link your Google Adsense account and we will display Google ads using your account when your video captions are displayed, about 50% of the time. In the near future will ad support for additional advertising providers.
Well, that’s if for my starter. I have plenty to say but I got to keep in short for today.
Thanks for reading and make sure to visit TubeCaption.com

ruby on rails: will_paginate anchor param

Recently I discover that I can add an anchor to the will_paginate helper for the will_paginate plugin in rails.

This will create the url as "path/?page=2#myanchor".

<%= will_paginate @videos, :params => {:anchor => "myanchor" }%>

IIS 5.1 Server Application Unavailable Error

I get this error sometimes when I change the default application in IIS.
When trying to browse my default.aspx page I get the big red font error "Server Application Unavailable".

I fix this issue by executing the following commands:
1) Give modify access to the "IIS_WPG"and "Internet Guest Account" users to your web directory. Try see if that works, if not continue with step2.

2) aspnet_regiis -i
3) iisreset

Microsoft Instructions:
To fix IIS mappings for ASP.NET, run the aspnet_regiis.exe utility:
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open text box, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
3. At the command prompt, type the following, and then press ENTER:
"%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\version\aspnet_regiis.exe" -i
In this path, version represents the version number of the .NET Framework that you installed on your server. You must replace this placeholder with the actual version number when you type the command.

Then,

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open text box, type iisreset.

Done! Go check out your site it should be up and running.

Ruby: Display datetime - time in words - timeago helper function.

I found this function on the web and putted right into my helper class to display DateTime or Time into words. Displaying time in words is now more used on the web. Popular pages such as YouTube and Yahoo videos use this approach.

Copy the code and plugged into your helper class.

 def timeago(time, options = {})
   start_date = options.delete(:start_date) || Time.new
   date_format = options.delete(:date_format) || :default
   delta_minutes = (start_date.to_i - time.to_i).floor / 60
   if delta_minutes.abs <= (8724*60)       
     distance = distance_of_time_in_words(delta_minutes)       
     if delta_minutes < 0
        return "#{distance} from now"
     else
        return "#{distance} ago"
     end
   else
      return "on #{DateTime.now.to_formatted_s(date_format)}"
   end
 end
 def distance_of_time_in_words(minutes)
   case
     when minutes < 1
       "less than a minute"
     when minutes < 50
       pluralize(minutes, "minute")
     when minutes < 90
       "about one hour"
     when minutes < 1080
       "#{(minutes / 60).round} hours"
     when minutes < 1440
       "one day"
     when minutes < 2880
       "about one day"
     else
       "#{(minutes / 1440).round} days"
   end
 end




Ruby: Format seconds into minutes to_minutes function

I created this function to turn seconds into minutes.
Example: 500 seconds should be displayed as 8:00 minutes.

 def to_minutes(seconds)
  
  m = (seconds/60).floor
  s = (seconds - (m * 60)).round
 
  # add leading zero to one-digit minute
  if m < 10
   m = "0#{m}"
  end
  # add leading zero to one-digit second
  if s < 10
   s = "0#{s}"
   end
  # return formatted time
  return "#{m}:#{s}"
 end

IE caches IFrame pages. Page load does not fire in IFrame page.

I had this issue on a project that I was working on. I created an IFrame to load a page in a modal window. On the close of the modal window I will close the frame, and then when the user clicks on a button to open the window I will recreate the frame with the same url to load the page. This worked fine with FireFox. On every load of the modal window I the Page_Load event will fire, however, with IE this was not the case. I solve the problem by creating a unique request every time setting a parameter with a random number in the source of the IFrame.


Iframe.src="MyPage.aspx?unique="+ Math.random();


Aivea eShop Shopping Cart is NOT Enterprise Ready (Review)

After looking for e-commerce solution for my store shopping cart I made the decision to go with Aivea eShop product. Their website ‘professional’ looking was what convinced me to buy it. However, when I downloaded the product with the source code I was shock. I have work in “Enterprise wide” applications and the eShop source code is not enterprise ready as they claim in their website.

These are my disappointment factors:

• Source code uses Hungarian notation.


• In store front website source code they persists almost every value in the session in the session.
  


• They don’t use strong typed entities. I only noticed 3 or 4 object to used to get data


• Heavy used of data sets instead of objects


• Not a flexible architecture. Business rules and data access is all in the App_Code folder. If you have more than one interface that needs to access the shopping cart to process order or retrieve order orders you can’t accomplish it without serious re-factoring and extracting the source code to reusable components.
  

I am sure I can find other reasons but I will stop here. This was the reason I decided not to use it in my application. Towards the end of the project I was so happy that I did not use this out of the shelf solution that encouraged me to write this article.

I am not writing this post to drive off their business, but to express my believe and make them be aware of what a user is thinking about their product. By the way the version that I used was 2.5+.

You can find more reviews here at
http://www.411asp.net/func/review?id=6449910&rid=&proc=anony

DetailsView Edit Mode never changes after Update command. DetailsView Edit button requires to clicks to change to edit mode.

I was stocked for sometime using the asp.net 2.0 DetailsView control to Edit/Update data. I wanted to do my custom implementation for the Update command instead of using the DataBinding Object sources but I found my self in trouble with several road blocks.

Problem 1: When clicking on the Edit button the DetailsView will not change the mode until the second click. The edit button required two clicks to change the mode to Edit instead of ReadOnly.
I solved this problem by changing the mode in the ModeChanging event handler and then rebinding the DetailsView control.

ModeChanging Event Handler:

protected void dvOrder_ModeChanging(object sender, DetailsViewModeEventArgs e)
        {
            dvOrders.ChangeMode(e.NewMode);

            if (e.NewMode != DetailsViewMode.Insert)
            {
                RefreshOrderDetails();
            }
        }




Problem 2: When clicking the update button I handle the updating of the order in the ItemUpdating event but the ItemUpdated never fires and the DetailsView never change the mode to ReadOnly after the data was updated. DetailsView control always stayed on the Edit Mode.


I solve this problem by canceling the ItemUpdating event, changing the mode, and rebinding the details view data source.

ItemUpdating Event Handler:

  protected void dvOrder_ItemUpdating(object sender, DetailsViewUpdateEventArgs e)
        {

            UpdateOrder();

            e.Cancel = true;

            dvOrders.ChangeMode(DetailsViewMode.ReadOnly);
            
            RefreshOrderDetails();
        } 

This was the only way I got things to worked for me. The ItemUpdated event never fired but I got the DetailsView to works how I wanted. I wish there was an easier way to do this or at least more documentation on Microsoft’s website.

IE Autocomplete Dropdown wrong location in Modal/Dialog window ASP.NET 2.0

I recently discover that if the AutoCompleteType attribute is not specify explicitly in the input control IE will display the autocomplete options dropdown in offset location in modal/dialog windows.

This is not the case if you are using Yahoo's tool bar or Google's auto fill feature in its tool bar, but IE is more stupid.

I fixed this issue my explicitly settings the AutoCompleteType attribute in the Textbox control.

Example textbox for first name field.

<asp:TextBox ID="txtFirstName" CssClass="input" runat="server" AutoCompleteType="firstname"></asp:TextBox>

By setting the AutoCompleteType attribute the problem was corrected.

JavaScript Validate Email using RegEx

Use the code below with an asp.net custom validator to check if an email is valid.
The code below check for a value if no value is provided then is not a valid email.

The pattern below will work with gmail's email address with "+" such as johnsmith+test@gmail.com

function ValidateEmail(sender, args)
{
   if(args.Value.trim().length > 0)
   {
       var ex = /^([a-zA-Z0-9_.+-])+@([a-zA-Z0-9_.-])+\.([a-zA-Z])+([a-zA-Z])+/;
       var re = new RegExp(ex );
       
       if(re.exec(args.Value))
       {
           args.IsValid = true;
       }
       else
       {
           args.IsValid = false;
       }
      
   }
   else
   {
       args.IsValid = false;
   }
}

Credit Card Expiration Date Validation -Javascript Function

function ValidateExpDate()

{

    var ccExpYear = 20 + $F('<%= txtCCExpirationYear.ClientID%>');

    var ccExpMonth = $F('<%= txtCCExpirationMonth.ClientID%>');

    

    var expDate=new Date();

    expDate.setFullYear(ccExpYear, ccExpMonth, 1);



    var today = new Date();



    if (expDate<today)

    {

        // Credit Card is expire

        return false;

    }

    else

    {

        // Credit is valid

        return true;

    }

}

Compilation Error CS0433

I fixed this error by changing the Page Property CodeFile to CodeBehind on the mater page and the content pages.

Use CodeBehind when working on Web Application projects in ASP.NET 2.0

VS.NET 2005 Close Tab on Double-Click

Anyone out there knows how to enable the functionality to close a tab document in vs.net 2005 on the double-click action just like firefox extensions?

I hate to use the middle button and will like to use the double click.

Thanks