Agha Usman

The underlying provider failed on Open

2012-09-01T18:13:00Z

The underlying provider failed on Open is an entity framework error and with a simple fix it is little difficult to sort out what is going wrong. 1) if you are using IIS 7 with Integrated Security in connection string. Make sure your IIS user have appropriate permissions to access database. 2) If you are using Visual Studio built in Web Server and facing this issue. Simple fix is to either re-start Visual Studio or Kill the process of Web Server which is (WebDev.WebServer*.exe). I was in the second...(read more)

Ambiguous in the namespace problem

2011-02-28T16:05:02Z

From the last few days, I was ignoring an error that keep coming at the compile time. I spent some two hours on it before but didn’t get it work. The error is quit confusing and of course difficult to manage. 'ApplicationSettingsBase' is ambiguous in the namespace 'System.Configuration' 'MailMessage' is ambiguous in the namespace 'System.Net.Mail' And there are couple of other similar errors that is pointing to some ambiguous references in my project. The confusing part is that the MailMessage...(read more)

Getting started with Unit Testing in C#

2009-08-07T19:04:18Z

Introduction: In this post, I will explain you how can we write a unit test in c#. It is a basic guideline for those who wants a quick start. Unit testing is an integral part of any software that is developed. It is an advantage which most of us are either not aware of or we are neglecting it. It actually helps a developer to write error free code. To write unit test, we will first install a unit-testing framework. About Unit-Testing Framework: Well, Unit-Testing Frameworks are useful...(read more)

Get Countries Name in .Net

2009-07-26T13:37:06Z

Introduction: In this post, I will explain you how can we get the countries name filled in any collection using .net without using any database. It is a regular task, which we all as developers did some past day but the difference is we used database table or xml file to hold the country names. But .net framework provide us with all the countries information in Globalization namespace. So, here is the code for that Dictionary< string , string > objDic = new Dictionary< string , string >...(read more)

Show Loading Message in Asp.net AJAX

2009-07-19T19:47:00Z

In this post, I will explain you how can we show Loading message in asp.net ajax without using Update Progress. Now some one may asked, why do I want to skip Update Progress ? Well, there can be several reasons for this, fist of all you have to work on every single page, and on every update panel to get the update progress working. There are basically three methods of meeting this requirement. Using Master Pages : A very smart way, but not all of us are using them .. right ? Extending Page Class ...(read more)

Migrate from WordPress to BlogEngine.net

2009-07-19T18:42:07Z

In this post, I will explain how to migrate a blog running on Word Press (Self Hosted) to BlogEngine. But before I start let me say, that Word Press simply rocks. The reason why I plan to switch my blog is customization. Since I am a dotnet geek, I really have no great idea of what I can make out of Word Press using PHP and when it comes to Blogging in .net, I guess I made a very right decision to use BlogEngine. It is open source and included all the necessary blogging utilities. The main thing...(read more)

How to show and select month/year in Calendar Extender

2009-05-30T22:16:09Z

In this post I will explain you, How to make calendar extender control to show month / year view by default and instead of selecting dates how can we use calendar extender to select months. Before I start, let me say that I got extensive support from this forum post http://forums.asp.net/t/1349086.aspx . Thanks to Zhi-Qiang Ni, but the way he follow was a little bit lengthy. However, all credit still goes to him because I gain the exact idea from his post. Let me start by creating a calendar extender...(read more)

Show images on Grid View from File Stream SQL Server 2008

2009-05-25T21:15:00Z

Background : In my last post about SQL Server 2008 new feature File Stream (Saving and Retrieving File Using FileStream SQL Server 2008) , we did an example of saving an image to the file stream and then retrieve it back and make it available for download. The result of that example looks like as below. But, one has to press the button to download the image file. One of my blog reader raise a point that he wants to display the same image instead of Get File button which is going to download. Introduction...(read more)

Custom Paging in Grid view

2009-05-18T20:17:00Z

So, it takes too long for me to write this post. even though I completed the coding stuff a week back but it is really hard to manage time these days. In this post, I will explain and demonstrate you how to create custom paging in Grid view control. Paging which works like the Google Paging. Let me elaborate more, say for example you have a record set of 500 items and you want to display 10 items per page. Now what happen to the pages numbers. Either you use the default with “..” sign after 10th...(read more)

Datatable to JSON

2009-05-16T11:53:29Z

In this post I will explain you, how can we serialize Datatable to JSON. So that, it can easily pass to JavaScript to get the AJAX done. First of all fill a Datatable with some results. DataTable dt = new DataTable(); SqlConnection objSqlCon = new SqlConnection(System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[ "AdventureWorksConnectionString" ].ToString()); objSqlCon.Open(); SqlDataAdapter objSqlDa = new SqlDataAdapter( "select * from Production.Product"...(read more)

Authenticated File Access using HTTP Handler.

2009-05-07T21:21:50Z

In this post I will explain you how authenticate the request directly coming to access a file that is downloadable. some thing like *.pdf or *.zip. Mostly, people make it working by creating an *.aspx page and then write binary of that file in Response.WriteFile. So, user will have no idea where the file is coming from. now this is the fair approach but what if somebody, somehow know the path of downloadable files. So, to stop the un authenticated access to our files, we will first create a session...(read more)

How to pass parameters to the dynamically added user control

2009-04-15T15:35:54Z

In this post, I will explain how you can pass parameter to the dynamically added (from code behind) User Control. Most of you might aware of how we can achieve this in web application project. Following is the code for that 1: Dim objCon As Control = Page.LoadControl( "~/Controls/MyControl.ascx" ) 2: Ctype (objCon,MyControl).PropertyOne = "Test" 3: Ctype (objCon,MyControl).PropertyTwo = "USAM" 4: MyPanel.Controls.add(objCon) Now what if you have a web site project which...(read more)

Get Repeater Control Output in String

2009-04-13T15:30:48Z

In this post I will share with you a small code snippet which will help you to get the repeater control output in string variable. 1: Dim sb As New StringBuilder() 2: Dim objHtml As New HtmlTextWriter( New System.IO.StringWriter(sb)) 3: 4: If dt.Rows.Count > 0 Then 5: Repeater1.DataSource = dt 6: Repeater1.DataBind() 7: End If 8: 9: Repeater1.RenderControl(objHtml) 10: Return sb.ToString() Well, I have used a little trick here. The RenderControl method of repeater control...(read more)

Storing/Retrieving Hierarchies In SQL Server Database

2009-03-16T13:45:30Z

Hierarchies are one of the most important part of many applications. It can be in shape of categories, family tree, organization charts etc. Maintaining hierarchies in data source like XML is not a big deal but when it comes to the database like SQL Server which is consist of flat table in terms of storing data, then it become a challenge. To overcome this (which I am sure most of us did ), we use recursion. Implementing recursion is very easy and can be applied on both back-end (by using cursors...(read more)

Saving and Retrieving File Using FileStream SQL Server 2008

2009-03-15T20:08:42Z

FileStream data type is a very important feature of SQL Server 2008 and gradually getting popular amongst developer for it’s feasibility. And in the past few days specially after “ Configure SQL Server 2008 for File Stream ” post. I received several feedbacks regarding the usage of FileStream with Ado.net and Frankly there is not much stuff available on Google for this topic. In this post, I will guide you to use FileStream Data type in Ado.net. But before we start make sure you have configure your...(read more)