Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET

For those of you that think the tech market has slowed down, there are plenty of .NET jobs available. dot-net-jobs.com has over 20 listings from job opportunities all across the US. Looking to change jobs? Check it out!

I noticed earlier in the week that someone pointed out that you can use ILDASM to pull out the strong-name from a strong-named assembly, and recompile using a different key. I remembered an article I came across on MSDN that talked about this, so I thought I'd quote it here.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Just wanted to let you know that DeadBolt.NET is ready for download... again. In case you missed it, DeadBolt.NET is an Assembly Signing Addin for Visual Studio .NET 2003, written by Jamie Cansdale and Michael O'Hearn. Oh yeah, and it's free (my holiday present to you). We're now using the proper procedure for extracting the PublickKeyToken of the Assembly Signing Key, and it has been tested on about 20 different keys. If you download it, make sure to read the User's Guide. There is a two-page introduction to Assembly Signing, and a bunch of walkthroughs on how to use the app.

A version of ScrollingGrid that actually works in a production environment. Today I've released ScrollingGrid 1.1. This new version opens up the previously private variable that sets the width to adjust for the Scrollbar. Now, if it's not rendering properly, you can adjust it yourself. ScrollingGrid was originally designed this way, but we had a design review a few weeks prior to launch, and it was determined that the property did not need to be exposed. A month's worth of real-world use showed this not to be the case, so I overrode the team and put it back in.

Just wanted to let my readers know that the Interscape Blogscape is now online. Over the next few weeks, you'll see several other Interscape employees talking about various issues relating to being a start-up software company. It should be really exciting. First on deck is our CEO, Michael Mahoney. He's going to blog about a range of business topics. He's a total blogging newbie, so don't tear him to shreds just yet.

Tim Heuer pointed me to an article that represents a fundamental flaw in our implementation of DeadBolt.NET. It is written by the great Don Box and Chris Sells, and describes what is going on under the covers of SN.EXE. I did a lot of research on the subject of Strong Name Signing before helping to write this add-in, and never came across this article. Hopefully, by pointing it out, more people will understand how it works, as I obviously didn't. Basically, our implementation is flawed because we're pulling the PublicKeyToken from the combined public/private key, and not just the public key (apparently, SN.EXE dioesn't pay attention to the difference). The assembly is being signed properly, we're just extracting the wrong information for the Public Key part.

A few months ago, I had a huge problem with Interscape's credit card processing. I bloggeed about it in a post entitled “How To Screw Up And Still Come Out Ahead” It was quite an ordeal. Well, I decided that I wanted to help make the process easier for people in the .NET world. So Interscape teamed up with MerchantPlus.cc for Phase One of a two-phase system to make it ridiculously easy to process credit cards on a website. Phase One is the Merchant Account, which is the way that the cards are processed. These accounts are tied to a “gateway”, which in this case is Authorize.net, and that is included in the package. We worked to get the lowest prices possible, and we're passing those prices directly on to you.

Seems nowadays everyone says that MS is on a long road to somewhere. Salon.com yesterday talked about the “Long Road To Longhorn” (wich is kinda catchy). LonghornBlogs.com made it in there (top of Page 2) which was kinda exciting. Now, News.com shows it's lack of creativity the next day with “The Long Road to Yukon”. I can't wait till the “Long Road To Whidbey” article comes out. The ought to be interesting, seeing as how Whidbey is an island and everything.