Wallace B. McClure

ASP.NET Podcast Show #138 - Coding Microsoft Velocity with David Penton - video

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Original Url: http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2009/03/19/asp-net-podcast-show-138-coding-microsoft-velocity-with-david-penton-video.aspx

Code Samples: http://www.aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/files/folders/podcastsupportfiles/entry1293.aspx 

Show Notes:

Windows Azure Samples - Storage Client and ASP.NET Providers

I got my dev vpc setup and installed this evening.  I was pulling my hair out looking for the latest StorageClient and ASP.NET Providers.  Where the heck are they.  Well, their are in the Windows Azure SDK directory.  they are in the samples.zip file.  I missed it because it was in a zip file.

Original Url: http://morewally.com/cs/blogs/wallym/archive/2009/03/20/windows-azure-samples-storage-client-and-asp-net-providers.aspx

Calling the Twitter API in C#

I've been working on this application to send out tweets at a particular time.  One thing thing I want to do is be able to look at the logged in user's timeline.  I've been playing with the ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX Previews, so I thought I would marry the two.  As a result, I wrote the WCF code below in C#.  Note that the password is hidden, so the code won't work until you add that in.  Basically, I make a request to get the friends timeline.  This gives me the most recent 20 posts by default. I store the result in an XmlDocument.  I need to get that data out as a complex object of type UserStatusSvc as I am returning an array of that type.  I used Linq to Xml for that.

          [OperationContract]
        public UserStatusSvc[] GetUserTimeLine(string username)
        {
            string url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.xml";
            //string user = Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(username + ":" + password));
            HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
            request.Method = "POST"; // <--- you probably need to change this to a GET after a twitter change a couple of months ago.
            request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);
            WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
            StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
            string responseString = reader.ReadToEnd();
            reader.Close();
            XmlDocument xmld = new XmlDocument();
            xmld.LoadXml(responseString);
            XDocument document = XDocument.Parse(responseString);

            var query = from e in document.Root.Descendants()
                        where e.Element("user") != null
                        select new UserStatusSvc
                        {
                            UserName = e.Element("user").Element("screen_name").Value,
                            ProfileImage = e.Element("user").Element("profile_image_url").Value,
                            Status = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Element("text").Value),
                            StatusDate = e.Value.ParseDateTime().ToString()
                        };

            var users = (from u in query
                         where u.Status != ""
                         select u).ToList();

            return (users.ToArray());
        }

Here's the definition of my UserStatusSvc object.

    [DataContract]
    public class UserStatusSvc
    {
        [DataMember]
        public string UserName { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public string ProfileImage { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public string Status { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public string StatusDate { get; set; }
    }

    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        public static DateTime ParseDateTime(this string date)
        {
            string dayOfWeek = date.Substring(0, 3).Trim();
            string month = date.Substring(4, 3).Trim();
            string dayInMonth = date.Substring(8, 2).Trim();
            string time = date.Substring(11, 9).Trim();
            string offset = date.Substring(20, 5).Trim();
            string year = date.Substring(25, 5).Trim();
            string dateTime = string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2} {3}", dayInMonth, month, year, time);
            DateTime ret = DateTime.Parse(dateTime);
            return ret;
        }
    }

Thanks to Tim Heuer for some code he posted on his blog to get me started.  I have primarily stolen his code and reposted it here.  :-)

Original Url: http://morewally.com/cs/blogs/wallym/archive/2009/03/17/calling-the-twitter-api-in-c.aspx

PS. I modified this code example to remove the hokey CheckForNull(...).  It was stupid and not necessary.  I didn't realize I had left it in until I got hassled for it.  The line 'where Element("user") != null' resolved my problem.

ASP.NET Podcast Show #137 - Install and Configuration of Microsoft Velocity with David Penton - video

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ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX - Pseudo Columns

With the ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX previews, there is the concept of a pseudo column.  This is similar in concept to Oracle's rownum and rowid columns that are returned in a query.  The two columns that ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX when doing databinding are $index and $dataItem. 

$index is an integer which represents the current record in the data binding operation.

Original Url: http://morewally.com/cs/blogs/wallym/archive/2009/03/16/asp-net-4-0-ajax-pseudo-columns.aspx

Chattanooga .NET User Group on Tuesday March 17

 I'll be speaking at the Chattanooga .NET User Group on Tuesday March 17.  The topic is an introduction to asp.net ajax.

ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX Preview Release 4 Setup

I downloaded and setup the javascript files for ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX Preview Release 4.  This release was put up last Thursday night / Friday morning.  Since I had a talk on Saturday at the Atlanta Code Camp on this subject, I decided to take the plunge and get my code moved over and running on it to show the latest and greatest running.  While the intelligence of that decision can be debated for a long time, I got it done.  I wanted to share some stuff about the setup of the product.  There are three sets of javascript files that are in the download, previously, there were two sets of files.  The new file is MicrosoftAjax.js.  This file is a little bit surprising because there is a file in the base Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX called this.  I read the instructions.  The instructions were a little bit blurry on this setup subject.  They sort of implied that the MicrosoftAjax.js files was only needed if you were NOT using the ASP.NET 3.5 Script Manager.  Any way, I found this to not be true.  To get things setup correctly, this is the setup I found that worked.

<asp:ScriptManager ID="sm" runat="server">
    <Scripts>
        <asp:ScriptReference Name="MicrosoftAjax.js"  Path="~/js/MicrosoftAjax.js" />
        <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/js/MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.debug.js" />
        <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/js/MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.debug.js" />
    </Scripts>
    <Services>
        <asp:ServiceReference Path="~/TwitterService.svc" /> <-- this is my file, so you probably don't need it.
    </Services>
</asp:ScriptManager>

Bertrand LeRoy suggested this setup below.  Given that he works on the ASP.NET team, I'll take his suggestion.  :-)

<asp:ScriptManager ID="sm" runat="server">
    <Scripts>
        <asp:ScriptReference ScriptMode="Inherit" Name="MicrosoftAjax.js"  Path="~/js/MicrosoftAjax.js" />
        <asp:ScriptReference ScriptMode="Inherit" Path="~/js/MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js" />
        <asp:ScriptReference ScriptMode="Inherit" Path="~/js/MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js" />
    </Scripts>
    <Services>
        <asp:ServiceReference Path="~/TwitterService.svc" />
    </Services>
</asp:ScriptManager>
 

I hope that this helps you out in the area of getting the preview setup.

Original Url: http://morewally.com/cs/blogs/wallym/archive/2009/03/16/asp-net-4-0-ajax-preview-release-4-setup.aspx

Atlanta Code Camp on Saturday March 14

I will be at the Atlanta Code Camp on Saturday March 14.  I will be speaking on an introduction to asp.net 4.0 ajax.  I'll also be running the podcast from the camp.  Please come by and say hello.

Atlanta GGMUG User Group tonight on an Intro to ASP.NET AJAX

I'll be speaking tonight at the Atlanta GGMUG User Group.  The subject is an Introduction to ASP.NET AJAX.  Thanks INETA for making this possible.

Please come by if this fits your schedule.