Néstor Sánchez
aspnet food for thought, from the Dúnadan Raptor

Using SSIS from ASP.NET to import Excel to SQL

hooligannes97 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:31:21 GMT

After struggling for quite a while and trying every suggestion in several blogs and forums I found that is was quite simple to solve a failed execution message. The interesting part is that everywhere you could see hints about identity. As you will see this is just part of the equation.

I had a small DNN project where I needed to import some source file into SQL. Since Both SQL and IIS are in the same box, identity shouldn’t matter that much as long as the account running the website (Pool Identity in IIS 7) has enough permissions. And THAT is the other side of the equation. After assigning NetworkService to the SQL BulkAdmin role, the package ran fine. I am still trying to find out if there’s a smaller set of perms that can be applied, since BulkAdmin is a server wide role.

Small gotcha with Silverlight 3 installation in Windows 7

hooligannes97 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:32:00 GMT

After learning Silverlight 3 was going to be launched on July 10 I got ready to install it on my dev machine. I went to the official website and was greeted with a you-have-an-older-version message. (You can see screens of the process in my blog here

Right below that there was a System Requirements link and after following it I saw a chart that did not show support for IE8 in Windows 7 (I forgot to take a screenshot). I quickly twittered (@hooligannes) the info and got replies from two people who didn’t have any problems, so I decided to dive in. Here’s what happened.

Failed Runtime Installation
A short while after pressing on the Click to Install button, I was shown a message that said that I could not install Silverlight without updating my development tools first. My guess is that users without a dev environment with Silverlight tools will not see this. I can’t validate though. It is too bad that a link to the dev tools is not provided in that screen. That could definitely be improved.

Silverlight Tools Installation
A few clicks later I was on the downloads page for the Silverlight 3 Tools For Visual Studio 2008 SP1

The installer informed that it would prepare the download, get the runtime, clean the installation, uninstall the Silverlight 2 Tools, update Visual Studio, install the SDK and then install the tools.

Naively, I did this install with IE open. I was still on the Silverlight home page, after pressing on the Click To Install button again I was surprised at the failure message. It said that I already had the runtime. Of course, closing the browser and reopening it did the trick and I could see the site with full Silverlight magic.

Packages failed to load error in Visual Studio

hooligannes97 — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:07:15 GMT

Touching too many pieces at once almost always causes errors and that became evident when I began to see the error of this post’s title. My VS2008 install was missing the asp.net templates and I could not understand why -later on I realized it was because I had not selected a component during the original install-, and tried several suggestions like running devenv.exe /installvstemplates from the command prompt and resetting VS settings in the Import and Export Settings menu.

Long story short, those brought more problems. I just needed to add the component, but now the VS installer would not run. Avoiding a longer delay I attempted to work on an existing project, but then I could not load the Controls Toolbox without facing three more errors now related to SQL components. Running the SQL Repair halted mentioning a VS problem.

I was doomed. OK, I am being dramatic, but it was a drag!

I decided to re-install VS. And what do you know, I couldn’t run the installer. A forced unsinstall was required now. A short search and Aaron Stebner’s blog post came to the rescue.

After uninstalling VS, I re-installed it, ran SP1 and repaired SQL. I am safe again, so I thought I’d save someone else the effort of finding VS Product GUID and post the command to uninstall Visual Studio Team System 2008.

msiexec /x {80C06CCD-7D07-3DB6-86CD-B57B3F0614D8}

If you have a different version, you’ll need to find it. Just read Aaron’s post and follow the steps to get the msiinv tool and obtain a list of installed applications according to msi.

Note: this is not always what you need to do. It was my last resource, so use it when the re-installation of templates does not work, and causes Packages registration to go awry.

Short Quick Tip for installing VS2010 from an ISO image

hooligannes97 — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:28:52 GMT

If you are like me and try to be environmentally friendly by not burning DVDs unless it’s really necessary, and you prefer to install apps from ISO images, be prepared for this one about VS 2010.

Like many programs that may need to run additional tasks after the first install pass, VS2010 setup will continue after reboot. Make sure you set your ISO reading software to remount the image on the virtual drive after the reboot, it’ll save you from a surprise when the installer can’t find the necessary files to continue.

Visual Studio 2010 beta 1 is out

hooligannes97 — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:12:22 GMT

News about the beta will start sprouting everywhere and I am lucky I already downloaded it. Sadly, I ran out of time and energy to install it. This beta is only available to MSDN subscribers at this time and is not feature complete. I am looking forward at the new TFS features, however the only place where I could find information about them is Brian Harry’s blog. With luck he’ll lead me through them all.

Common DotNetNuke Errors –Tip 1

hooligannes97 — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:34:41 GMT

Find the original of this one, the first of a series of posts at my DotnetNuke Blog.

This one mostly happens to newcomers to DotNetNuke development that don’t read, or just do some fast skimming over the instructions for DotNetNuke installation. It doesn’t happen when using the Install package, just with the Source one and will manifest itself when calling the application for the first time from the browser.

The Parser Error Message is vague and specific at the same time, “Could not load type 'DotNetNuke.Common.Global'”. Of course, with some experience, it’s clear that the cause is a missing web.config file.

Look at the Website folder, make a copy of the development.config file and rename it web.config. Then go ahead and install DotNetNuke.

Dynamics CRM Crmservice unavailable in Visual Studio 2008

hooligannes97 — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:32:55 GMT

I needed to create a report in a DNN website to obtain the Total billable hours for a single case in Dynamics CRM. All my previous DotNetNuke modules for CRM had been done in VS2005, which lead me to miss a detail. I published the post at my DotNetNuke blog

Wolfram/Alpha or the end of the world as we know it

hooligannes97 — Sat, 16 May 2009 20:38:33 GMT

While reading the preface to the book “A New Kind of Science” (NKS), I was listening to REM’s song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” How appropriate to coincide with the official launch of a project of the book’s author, Stephen Wolfram.

I cannot say that I was following this project from the beginning (back in 2000), but I know it is going to generate more news now that it was officially launched yesterday (may 15). This post is a short recap of information that can be found at the project’s website.

The project is called Wolfram/Alpha and it is a computational knowledge engine. With its operations headquarters in Illinois, its objective is to “make all systematic kinowldge immediately accessible and computable for everyone.”

At launch it had more than 10 trillion pieces of data, 50,000 types of algorithms and models and linguistic capability for thousands of domains.

The project is the result of Wolfram’s leadership. To reach this point, after almost 30 years, two previous developments had to take place. Mathematica and NKS.

Mathematica is, according to its own definition, “a computation and visualization system, development environment and deployment engine. Used throughout diverse technical fields, including engineering, science and financial analysis.” Together with NKS, the book that explained the paradigm that made it possible to imagine the very same possibility that Wolfram/Alpha could exist, they are the consequence of the singular vision of this 49 year old ant his Wolfram Research team.

Wolfram/Alpha website claims that the system has the capability to understand free-form input. Presented as both as a technology and a platform, we’ll soon be introduced to developer APIs.

It is indeed a fresh approach to science and knowledge in general. If you want to learn more you can visit its site at http://www.wolframalpha.com. A free online version of NKS can be found at http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html

DNN Round Up #1 published at DNN.com blogs

hooligannes97 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:30:27 GMT

I worked in broadcasting and journalism long before I got involved in technology and it is another passion of mine. While my love for DNN progressively increased, I would devour as much information as I could find. In the DNN 2.X days, most of the available information was at the asp.net forums where at first I was a lurker, then a question flooder and finally even became a moderator (I still am). I always wanted to get involved with DNN and my sources of information have been sprouting (and also dwindling) around. One of my favorites was Seablick’s DNN Friday, but it is lagging behind. The problem is that a set deadline for your publication will almost surely be missed when business endeavors that pay the bills get in the way.

Arguably, a huge number of community members are blogging about DNN and there’s no single comprehensive resource. Fortunately, that is bound to change and to start the path I am getting my DNN paws trained again to write read and write about DotNetNuke.

As a self-trained IT/Dev pro I have learnt that setting too high a goal will only doom my commitment. Therefore I’ve made a compromise with myself. I will only publish this round up when material is enough to make it worthwhile reading. Obviously, I have chosen the easiest and most informal way to publish it. It may transmogrify into a whole new animal in time, but I am satisfied to do it in this way, for now. Without any further ado, You can find DNN Round Up #1 at the DotNetnuke Blogs.

WPF Visuals in Visual Studio

hooligannes97 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:45:00 GMT

Microsoft’s Jason Zander revealed in his blog a few new shots that portray the new look for Visual Studio 2010.

We are treated to new looks every once in a while. What makes this one interesting is that it uses .NET Framework 4.0’s WPF underneath. It’s all new to me cause I did not download the 2010 beta version when it was about to expire in January and I found the workaround too messy.

You can see for yourself in screens posted to Zander’s blog. I like these two:

Better outlining indicators
Floating docs that don’t need to be inside VS (great for multi-display work)

It’s not a complete redesign from the ground up so the interface looks familiar enough, probably preparing for a more drastic change after the WPF foundation is in place. I doubt that such a change will see the light in the next release, probably one after that. As far as the current cycle of VS 2010 development is concerned, when the new beta is out I’ll tell more about it.

Professional DotNetNuke Module Programming

hooligannes97 — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:54:00 GMT

This Wrox book by my DotNetNuke fellow colleague Mitchel Sellers is out and I got my copy yesterday. This 300-page book has 18 chapters and 5 appendixes that walk you through the process of creating a module.

I was glad to see that Professional DotNetNuke Module Programming is not just about writing code with DNN. Mitchel’s approach includes the preparation steps like setting up your development environment, understanding the terms used in the DotNetNuke world and several implementation details.

WSP or WAP? There are summaries of both and a comparison that will help programmers decide which model to use.

Updated Starter Kit details. The last time some info had been documented was when Shaun Walker created a blog post when it was originally released. Mitchell missed a small detail about the Dynamic templates. They can be used without any issues in any Visual Studio version, not just Visual Web Developer.

Database configuration. There are different approach to configuring the DB for DotNetNuke and Mitchel shows one of them. Perhaps next edition will see more alternative ones included. Until then, I hope Shawn Mehaffie documents the ones he’s been testing for several years now. But programmers can see from the information that it is one of the most simple steps.

I like Mitchel’s take on looking at the basic components of a module. They are grouped in a single chapter instead of being introduced in a scattered way around the book.

Localization is a first-class citizen in this book, not a side-thought. This shows the importance of one of DNN’s most important features.

Module Navigation and Communication coverage was too short for me. I believe that more should be written about this, because it is one of the areas that module developers invariably find themselves at odds after surmounting the initial learning slope. In DNN, the modular development model does not mean completely isolated pieces. To the contrary. The components of web applications that programmers will write sooner or later are going to need to interact - sometimes heavily –, with each other. Sadly, there’s not enough information anywhere else either.

AJAX and jQuery are briefly touched but it should be enough when put together with the wealth of information available about these two web 2.0 mainstays.

The recommended Best Practices of Chapter 18 will be useful for both beginners and experienced asp.net programmers that are new to DNN.

Based on DotNetNuke 4.9.0, this book is the best complement to the Module Developers Guide from the DotNetNuke website which is based on an earlier DNN 4 version. I know he was under pressure to complete this book and I think that Mitchel’s experience in teaching and writing makes this a great learning tool. The original author was behind schedule and was unable to finish it so it was handed to Mitchel who used a different Table of Contents and module example to write the book within a short time span.

The framework has progressed so much that no one single book will have every bit of information about it and that’s exactly what makes this an important addition to your DotNetNuke library.

Wireless Electricity Is Here (Seriously)

hooligannes97 — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:18:00 GMT

The title of this blog entry repeats without adornments the title of an article in FastCompany magazine that reports about the imminence of a technology that will absolutely revolutionize the mobile industry and will transcend into other areas. We will soon presence the era of truly wireless devices.

Vista, Visual Studio and Dotnetnuke development

hooligannes97 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:10:00 GMT

I had been using Vista on a Virtual PC to slowly become acquainted and I had refused to own a notebook, until I was sucked into reality when my wife asked me to take a week off or else... Long story short, I looked for and bought a laptop in less than an hour. I configured it with 4GB RAM an Vista Business 32-bit, since I wasn't prepared to spend more on a 64 bit machine for my first purchase.

After installing Office, it was time to set up my development environment for my DotNetNuke projects. VS 2008, SQL 2005 and Virtual PC 2007. After set up, I started to configure my DotNetNuke environment and experienced issues when trying to install DotNetNuke.

I had two specific issues:

The install would hang. After several attempts and getting help from Charles Nurse I realized it was that VS2008 only installed the latest MS AJAX version, and DotNetNuke uses AJAX v 1. After installing it everything was OK
After successfully installing DNN4 it was time to play with DNN5 Betas. With Vista's IIS version you can create sites, not just virtual directories and I was happily trying to create one called http://donetnuke_2 to follow the practice for core modules. For some reason after installing the beta successfully I could not login into DNN. With help from Sebastian Leupold, Erik Van Ballegoij, Charles, Chris Hammond and Shawn Mehaffie, I finally pinpointed the error to the fact that you cannot use dashes in the domain part of the URL. After switching to http://dotnetnuke2 I was back in the game.

This are just two issues I came across and so far I have been coding away without any issues in Vista and VS2008. I plan to start testing Windows 7 and VS2010 CTP in my first attempt to be an early adopter. Of course, I will post my findings here, stay tuned.

Have you found other issues with Vista and VS2008? Let me know.

Day 1: Windows 7 & Internet Explorer 8 - a better experience, really

hooligannes97 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:44:54 GMT

I've managed to stay away from Betas for a long time, I could not afford to have downtime but with the entire buzz about Internet Explorer 8 and the recent availability of Windows 7, I decided to give it a go.

I created a new VM with 1GB RAM and a 20 GB Hard drive. The installation process was quite smooth, and I practically did not notice it while attending our DotNetNuke weekly team meeting. I did not even create a DVD; I just captured the downloaded ISO and began installation.

Although in the VM I have to do away with the Aero GUI, I must say that turning Full Screen Mode on and working as if I were directly in the Laptop base OS was just fine.

Some of the features are even more intuitively placed, including the direct access to change the screen resolution. The additional feature that allows automatic rotation of background is nice as well. During the day Windows Explorer did not cause any of the problems I currently have in Vista, like the restarts I have to endure. Finally I found the copying feature more stable and reliable. I copied several hundreds of MB from another machine, going through the Host OS with an apparent increase in speed. The laptop has 4GB of RAM and the VM did better with only 1GB.

On the network side, with the exception of finding out that clicking the "Connect to a Network" links in the Start Menu or the Network And Sharing Center, both open the popup that takes you the Network And Sharing Center (!?)-, I had no problems joining my domain.

After installing the Firewall client, I went to see some of my favorite sites to experience firsthand how the new standards compliance could affect their appearance. None of the sites I visited had any issues. I took more time to visit some DotNetNuke based sites, of course including some I've done for my customers. I am amazed that none of them presented any problems.

One of my best experiences so far was with the Silverlight extension install. I was completely surprised that after downloading and installing it, I did not have to restart IE. Even though the installer finished mentioning that I might need a refresh, Silverlight content was immediately available in some of the browser windows I already had open.

I liked the docking of windows and the automatic behavior that hides or shows other windows when you shake the active one.

Although I was limited because I was running Windows 7 inside of the VM, for a day's worth of playing with Windows 7, I had a pleasant experience. I can see now why there are rumors that a second Beta may not happen and that a RC could be the next version that Microsoft releases.

An opportunity for better DotNetNuke testing with Typemock Isolator

hooligannes97 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:51:00 GMT

A product that will complement the current effort to support unit testing in DotNetNuke, is Typemock Isolator. They have an ongoing campaing to start some kind of viral marketing and they are giving their product for free to those who post about it in specialized blogs. So, full disclosure, I want to get the free license and start using the product to test my DotNetNuke modules.

*Begin*

Programming Visual Basic applications?

Typemock have released a new version of their unit testing tool, Typemock Isolator 5.2.
This version includes a new friendly VB.NET API which makes Isolator the best Isolation tool for unit testing A Visual Basic (VB) .NET application.

Isolator now allows unit testing in VB or C# for many ‘hard to test’ technologies such as SharePoint, ASP.NET MVC, partial support for Silverlight, WPF, LINQ, WF, Entity Framework, WCF unit testing and more.

Note that the first 25 bloggers who blog this text in their blog and tell us about it, will get a Free Full Isolator license (C#, VB, and Sharepoint included - worth $139 !!!). If you post this in a VB.NET dedicated blog, you'll get a license automatically (even if more than 25 submit) during the first week of this announcement.

Go ahead, click the following link for more information on how to get your free license.

*End*

Néstor Sánchez aspnet food for thought, from the Dúnadan Raptor