Archives

Archives / 2003 / July

  • File and Data Management Area in ASP.NET Web Matrix

    24 Comments

    One of the very cool feature in Web Matrix v0.6 is the real time visual rendering of User Control. That is, if we create a User Control and save it(uc1.ascx), and then we create a parent/template page (WebForm1.aspx) to embed this User Control, what we have to do is to drag the User Control (uc1.aspx) and drop it onto the page (WebForm1.aspx), then the visual appearance of the User Control will be displayed on the designer of Web Matrix automatically. That's a really cool feature in WM and his brothers - Visual Studio .NET 2002 and 2003 still can NOT render user controls in real time like that but just showing a 'grey box' instead.

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  • [Book] Calm at Work - by Paul Wilson

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    I read few pages of a book titled "Calm at Work" - Paul Wilson.

    Yes, the author of this book is Paul Wilson! That's why I pick it up from the bookshelf (Hey Paul, why don't you let me know that you publish a book with no relationship with .NET?!)

    Obviously, that author is actually NOT the one who I know - the ASP.NET Guru: PaulWilson. I saw this book on the cateogry of Psychology from a bookstore, and I pick it up anyway as the title is quite interesting to me (another reason is that I want to clarify is that Paul == the one who I know :)
    While a chapter of "Time" and "Time Pressure" in this book impressed me and I'd like to blog and share it:

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  • Monitor II

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    After reading a blog about a 'multi-monitor' (pilot) office here (remind me if you remember the Url of that blog), I saw another 'special' office today...

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  • Blog Glossary

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    I found this web site of "Blog Glossary" from an entry of Mike's Blog, as I got a little Linky Love from him last week. :0)

    BTW, I think this glossary is a good reference for every bloggers.

    Moreover, I learn two new terms for me today:

    Clog Blog (noun.) A Dutch language blog
    Frogblogs (noun.) A Francophone blog

    As I'm going to launch a blog application which support Chinese & English bloggers (which is based on the Blog Framework from ScottW), but I don't see there's a 'term' of blog in Chinese language... hm... Maybe I should 'invent' a term and 'update' this Glossary, or please kindly let me know if any of you know the answer. :)

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  • FAQ for Email Sending in ASP.NET

    3 Comments

    Email sending in ASP.NET is very easy! There's a library named "System.Web.Mail" provide a easy emailing services for ASP.NET Developers, we can prepare and send an email from our Web application in just 1-2 lines of codes. Moreover, Web Matrix provide a Code Wizard which contain a Email Sending module/wizard which will generate the code to send email in a visual way.

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  • System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Login failed for user 'MachineName\ASPNET'

    259 Comments

    I'm not sure how many of you are using MSDE as your backend data store, but Web Matrix inborn work naturally with the MSDE Database. Even in the Guided Tour of Web Matrix (which is a tutorial for Web Matrix user and step-by-step samples for users) also have an appendix specialized in MSDE installation).

    "Login Failed for user XXX\ASPNET" is a FAQ in the Forums, I think I saw and moderate this kind of questions over thousands of times. Dave post a FAQ for this subject some times ago, while an ASP.NET Team member - MikePope - answer a question for that problem again recently.

    Abstract:

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  • ASPNET Worker Process Recycled?!

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    I received a ad-hoc task for retrieving, sorting and filtering data from a Excel file tonight, it's pretty simple and straighforward - Just use an appropriate connectionString in ADO.NET then I can connect to the 'data source' and manipulate the data directly.

    However, I 'hang' for about 5 minutes in front of my workstation in the process! There're two problems which were sucking me:

    1. A Excel worksheet was used as a Data Source by user, well, I understand this situation as users are more familiar with the Office products sense, but the point is that the single worksheet contain >= 20Mb of data, which take me l..o..n..g.. time in loading. 20Mb is a insignificant size when storing in a SQL Server, but loading up a 20Mb Excel file is really face a heavy performance penalty. (More info: The file is connected and filled with data from a SQL Server, but I'm not authorized to access to this Server directly, don't laugh at me)

    2. An error message with something like "aspnet worker process recycled" displayed when I was retrieving the data from the 'data source'. Next, I go to open up my Event Viewer and see what's going on. The reason is something like "Insufficient memory - the ASP.NET process take > 60% of my physical memory". Ah.... I have 256Mb physical RAM in my workstation and... I don't want to waste time in this issue but just search and scan a similar Kb from Microsoft support site.

    Finally, my solution is to break down the amount of data to be SELECT for retrival in order to 'avoid' this problem, I don't want to spend more time in investigating or trying to solve this problem tonight, as I want to completed my task ASAP and off - I've     stayed in office for nearly 12 hours already.

    Inproper way for problem-solving and learning? or reply to user in the shortest response time? Who win? Excel or XML or other Data Source will you suggest to users?

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  • INETA New Face

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    I just hanging around and find that the International .NET Association (INETA) have a new face now!
    (More information for this new web site can be found at here)

    It look promising and fresh!
    I think it must be the good work from the INETA Infrastructure team there. ;)

    Well, I'm not sure is it new but I found a pretty cute logo on the top right hand corner :)

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  • First User Group Presentation Completed

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    Just complete my first presentation for my local Hong Kong .NET User Group yesterday, well, the number of attendee/members is a little bit out of my expectation! The venue provide 40 seats to me originally, but it turn out over (approximately) 120 (when I look at the audience on stage) members come here!!

    (Here, I'd like to thanks to the The Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) - Department of Computing providing the venue and cooperation of increasing the room capability immediately for us!)

    Based on the conversation between a couple of members and me after the presentation, I've noticed that... They're not quite satisfy for my presentation at all... the reason is "Too few codes", "To few demo", "You say too much", etc.

    Yes, based on my experience in giving presentation to 'beginners', showing too many codes or demos is not cool, they feel confused and just like 'watching a cat playing a ball on sofa' - they've no much feeling or don't feel exciting about the demo/code, yes, I enjoy coding even on stage and a few of member may feel interesting, but the majority of beginnners who have no concept / idea about what I'm doing actually, well, but the situation is obviously changed now... Maybe I should change my mind and material for the next presentations...

    Confused?! :(

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  • Writing ASP.NET Web Matrix Add-Ins. How?

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    There's a new Add-In control for Web Matrix as known as DbDiagrams, while I'm sure majority of people who like or dislike ASP.NET Web Matrix somehow is because it's lack of functionality and features compared with VS.NET 2003.

    Well, these 2 products have 2 different design goal and target users. It's hard to compare them in 1-2 sentences. Anyway, more and more cool control / add-in come for this tool MUST increase the interest and usage for developers in this FREE (reloaded) ASP.NET Development Tool.

    Therefore, CarlosAg, who work in the ASP.NET Team and as a quality assurance for the latest Web Matrix Reloaded version, recently wrote an article and teaching our fellow developers about how to write a add-in for Web Matrix.

    Currenly, DbDiagram from Carlos is an interesting idea and add-in, while if any of you want the features like "IntelliSense", DB Layer code generator, multiple languages switch... These are potential add-in and I think this article is the way to go.

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