Stuart Manning

Gasta MVC Search Platform released.

Stuart Manning — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:53:00 GMT

We are glad to officially announce the launch the new Gasta Search and Advertising Platform on Gasta.com. We have built the platform from the ground up and is the entry phase to the new 'White Label Search and Marketing Platform' proudly build here in Belfast. On launch the platform is now powering 200 additional partnered sites with our new partner features.

New features include:-

New SEO friendly URL's
Social bookmarking with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg
Short Url service for brand marketing.
New Ad Manager.

Gasta, as a solution, is now ready to create and power your own personalised and incorporated search advertising network. The white label approach is now open to anyone who wished to create their own ad network with content distribution and affiliate partnerships.

Get started today.

http://www.gasta.com
http://www.gasta.com/ads

Are you new to developing in .Net and looking for Free Training?

Stuart Manning — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:24:00 GMT

Published 01 June 09 10:47 | Simon Phillips
Microsoft has posted some free online training course for developers as part of their Ramp Up series.
I came across this a while ago but there has been some new content released.

Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program that will help you build professional development skills. Join Ramp Up (it's free!) and help advance your career.

Currently there are 11 courses

Web Development with ASP.NET
Move from PHP to ASP.NET
Move from ASP to ASP.NET
Develop Windows Mobile 6 Applications
SharePoint for Developers - Part 1
SharePoint for Developers - Part 2
Visual Studio 2008
For the VS 2002/2003 Developer: Learn VS 2005
For the VB 6.0 Developer: Learn VB 2005
For the Java Developer: Learn .NET
Developer Basics

Ramp Up home page.

Are you new to developing in .Net and looking for Free Training? - Simon Phillips

How to Use Microsoft.Web.Administration : Using Scripts to Automate Management : Managing and Maintaining IIS 7.0 : The Official Microsoft IIS Site

Stuart Manning — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:39:15 GMT

How to Use Microsoft.Web.Administration : Using Scripts to Automate Management : Managing and Maintaining IIS 7.0 : The Official Microsoft IIS Site

Introduction

IIS 7.0 provides a comprehensive managed-code management application programming interface (API) that allows complete manipulation of the XML configuration files and convenience access to server objects. This document walks you through using the new management API to modify server configuration and administer server objects.

IIS 7.0 includes Microsoft.Web.Administration, which is a new a management API for the web server that enables editing configuration through complete manipulation of the XML configuration files. It also provides convenience objects to manage the server, its properties and state. The configuration editing aspect of the API provides programmatic access to read and write configuration properties in the IIS 7.0 configuration file hierarchy and specific configuration files. The object management aspect of this API provides a series of top-level administration objects for direct management of the server (i.e. sites, application pools, worker processes, etc).

The management classes reside in the Microsoft.Web.Administration namespace. The classes provide a weakly-typed interface to access configuration sections and convenience objects with properties and methods representing attributes of the configuration (like the path of a virtual directory) or actions to take on the object (like recycling an application pool).

Create a New Site

The following code creates a site titled "Racing Cars Site" with its root application and root virtual directory. It also sets the site to use the HTTP protocol at port 80 and defines the physical path at d:\inetput\wwwroot\racing.

The ServerManager is the factory class that contains a set of server convenience objects to which properties and methods are available to use in a strongly-type way. It is the main entry point for managing the server. Managing the server could have been done via other cumbersome routes (accessing raw configuration XML or calling state APIs), but through these objects managing the server is seamless. The most common set of objects are available to use via the server manager include: applications, virtual directories, sites, worker processes and application domains.

ServerManager serverManager = new ServerManager();

The sites object enables access to a sites properties and applications. It also contains methods to add a site to the system or get the total site count. The add method also defines the name of the site, the root virtual directory path, and the port number as integer. Also note that this call is being instantiated as a Site object, mySite, to which then we could act upon the newly created site by modifying its properties directly.

Site mySite = serverManager.Sites.Add("Racing Cars Site", d:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\racing", 8080);

The convenience objects make modifying properties easy. By accessing the properties from the mySite object, one can set the auto-start property of the site to "true" directly without knowing any specific XML attribute or element concepts.

mySite.ServerAutoStart = true;

Also, a different route that could have been taken to modify the auto-start property is to not instantiate a site object. Instead, fetch the site once it is created and modify its properties directly. The management object uses the concept of indexers to search for specific objects by keys such as name or index without having to incur in expensive calls to list the entire object set. By defining the name one can get the specific object and act upon it.

serverManager.Sites["Racing Cars Site"].ServerAutoStart = true;

In order to update, the commit changes call executes the transaction to serialize configuration, if any has changed, to disk.

serverManager.CommitChanges();

Executing the code above generates the following output in applicationHost.config within the section. Instead of manipulating the XML directly and working at the element and attribute level, using the server manager objects provides a convenient way to manage the web server.

Create a New Application Pool

The following code modifies the existing "Racing Cars Site" and changes its name and the physical path at d:\inetput\wwwroot\racing. It also creates a new application pool, defines some properties, set the racing site to use this pool and finally recycles it.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Web.Administration;
namespace MSWebAdmin_Application
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ServerManager serverManager = new ServerManager();
            Site site = serverManager.Sites["Racing Cars Site"];
            site.Name = "Racing Site";
            site.Applications[0].VirtualDirectories[0].PhysicalPath = "d:\\racing";
            serverManager.ApplicationPools.Add("RacingApplicationPool");
            serverManager.Sites["Racing Site"].Applications[0].ApplicationPoolName = "RacingApplicationPool";
            ApplicationPool apppool = serverManager.ApplicationPools["RacingApplicationPool"];
            apppool.ManagedPipelineMode = ManagedPipelineMode.ISAPI;
            serverManager.CommitChanges();
    apppool.Recycle();
        }
    }
}

Instead of indexing to fetch the site, you can instantiate a site object and set the reference to it. Once the reference is set, you can call the methods for the site object, in this case name, to rename the site directly.

Site site = serverManager.Sites["Racing Cars Site"];
site.Name = "Racing Site";

Here is another use of the indexers to get the root application and then the root directory and set the physical path on it.

site.Applications[0].VirtualDirectories[0].PhysicalPath = "d:\\racing";

Besides the site object, we have the application pool object that provides a convenient way to get and set configuration properties, as well as act on state methods and data. A new application pool is created and then immediately the site is put on that application pool.

serverManager.ApplicationPools.Add("RacingApplicationPool");
serverManager.Sites["Racing Site"].Applications[0].ApplicationPoolName = "RacingApplicationPool";

Like the server manager site object, the server manager application pool object allows you to create the application pool object and set the reference to it. You can also get and set properties and call on methods.

Once the application pool configuration data is serialized to the file via the update call, you can execute the recycle method on it. This recycle call is not necessary, since the application pool will simply be created and there is no need. But this illustrates that action can be taken in objects that have been created only after they are serialized to disk and the server can fetch this configuration and act upon it.

ApplicationPool apppool = serverManager.ApplicationPools["RacingApplicationPool"];
apppool.ManagedPipelineMode = ManagedPipelineMode.ISAPI;
serverManager.CommitChanges();
apppool.Recycle();

Also, the following changes happen to the section:

Set Configuration in Site Root web.config

The following code sets the "enabled" attribute of the section to false for site "Default Web Site".

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Web.Administration;
namespace MSWebAdmin_Application
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ServerManager serverManager = new ServerManager();
            Configuration config =
            mgr.GetWebConfiguration("Default Web Site");
            ConfigurationSection section = config.GetSection("system.webServer/defaultDocument");
            ConfigurationAttribute enabled = section.GetAttribute("enabled");
            enabled.Value = true;
            serverManager.CommitChanges();
        }
    }
}

The configuration is a class that provides access to configuration sections in the system. Based on the different calls to get configuration, you could access applicationHost.config, web.config, administration.config or any other configuration file. The GetWebConfiguration call specifically gets a web.config file for the given site – Default Web Site - and the specific path – root.

Configuration config = serverManager.GetWebConfiguration("Default Web Site");

Once the web.config file is acquired (if it does not exist, is created), the call to get a section is made. We are looking for the section in order to disable it. Even if the web.config file does not exist (or if it does exist, but there is no section set explicitly), there is still effective configuration applied to the site level. This is the configuration that will be overridden.

ConfigurationSection section = config.GetSection("system.webServer/defaultDocument");

By using methods on the section object, you can get the enabled attribute and then set its value via the value method. Only after calling the commit changes method in the server manager will the changes be serialized and persisted to disk and immediately be picked up by the server. If there are multiple instances of configuration objects, calling commit changes on the server manager will persist all objects to disk.

ConfigurationAttribute enabled = section.GetAttribute("enabled");
enabled.Value = true;
serverManager.CommitChanges();

Another option to get and set attribute information from a section is via the use of indexers. The following line of code can be used after getting the section object in order to set the enabled attribute value.

section["enabled"] = true;

The end result is configuration set on the web.config file of the site specified.

Set Configuration For a Site in applicationHost.config

The following code sets the "enabled" attribute of the section to false for site "Default Web Site".

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Web.Administration;

namespace MSWebAdmin_Application
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ServerManager serverManager = new ServerManager();
            Configuration config = serverManager.GetApplicationHostConfiguration();
            ConfigurationSection section = config.GetSection("system.webServer/defaultDocument","Default Web Site");
            ConfigurationAttribute enabled = section.GetAttribute("enabled");
            enabled.Value = false;
            serverManager.CommitChanges();
        }
    }
}

This code is effectively the same as the previous task; the only difference is the configuration manager call to get the applicationHost.config file via GetApplicationHostconfiguration.

Note: The get section call is the one that specifies both the section that will be read and/or modified as well as the location path for it.

Configuration config = serverManager.GetApplicationHostConfiguration();

The end result is configuration set on the applicationHost.config file applicable to the site specified via a location tag.

Custom Route Constraint in ASP.NET MVC : Keyvan Nayyeri

Stuart Manning — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:01:40 GMT

Excellent article on Custom Routing for ASP.NET MVC

Custom Route Constraint in ASP.NET MVC : Keyvan Nayyeri

Paging with ASP.NET MVC

Stuart Manning — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:19:00 GMT

Great Article by Martijn Boland on Custom Paging

Martijn Boland » Paging with ASP.NET MVC

ASP.NET MVC - Localization Helpers

Stuart Manning — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:18:52 GMT

Article on Localization for MVC by Matt Hawley

ASP.NET MVC - Localization Helpers

Localization with ASP.NET MVC using Routing

Stuart Manning — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:39:07 GMT

Localization with ASP.NET MVC using Routing « Alebo’s World

Allowing special characters (forward slash, hash, asterisk etc) in ASP.Net MVC URL parameters

Stuart Manning — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:38:03 GMT

Allowing special characters (forward slash, hash, asterisk etc) in ASP.Net MVC URL parameters

Combining JQuery Validation with ASP.NET MVC

Stuart Manning — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:41:04 GMT

Good article on using jQuery to Validate ASP.NET MVC by Pablo Cibraro

Combining JQuery Validation with ASP.NET MVC - Pablo M. Cibraro (aka Cibrax)

'REAL' AJAX with Asp.Net (not Asp.Net AJAX) Series : Building a complete ajax CRUD system with Asp.Net

Stuart Manning — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:29:33 GMT

Ever feel guilty using an Update Panel – read this article

'REAL' AJAX with Asp.Net (not Asp.Net AJAX) Series : Building a complete ajax CRUD system with Asp.Net

ASP.NET MVC: Implement Theme Folders using a Custom ViewEngine

Stuart Manning — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:23:09 GMT

An article on using a custom theme engine for MVC by Chris Pietschman

ASP.NET MVC: Implement Theme Folders using a Custom ViewEngine

rTweeter - Twitter client now available http://rtweeter.com

Stuart Manning — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:47:00 GMT

So, I decided to do a FLEX twitter client and it's available now.

http://rtweeter.com

RTweeter is a project to create a better Twitter desktop client for all platforms. It's was created to help filter and organise people who's twitter accounts are basically too large to manage without Groups and related filters.

What RTweeter focuses on is scheduled Tweeting and finding the best information from your twitter streams.

RTweeter is a pre-alpha project - but don't let that stop you from trying it features - we need your input to improve it. What we wish to provide is a slim and compact application that operates 'beyond' conventional clients.

Rtweeter works on both PC/Mac & Compatible Linux Distros

Internet Explorer 8: Final release

Stuart Manning — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:48:52 GMT

IE8 is here at last.

Internet Explorer 8: Home page

10 useful jQuery plugins :: ENHANCE

Stuart Manning — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:47:21 GMT

10 useful jQuery plugins :: ENHANCE

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released!

Stuart Manning — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:46:50 GMT

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 RTW (Release To Web) is now officially released.

This was one of several announcements ScottGu made at the Mix 09 conference today, which I unfortunately missed because I was on a plane to Vegas enroute to Mix 09. I was busy back at the mother ship making sure everything was in order for the release.

Woohoo!

Full article:-

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released!

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 RTM, Source, Docs, Videos, and More

Stuart Manning — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:45:51 GMT

For all of you who've been waiting long and hard, the time has finally come... ASP.NET MVC has been released!

You can download the 1.0 release from the Microsoft Downloads site.

You can also view the documentation for ASP.NET MVC on the MSDN Microsoft Developer Network.

Full article below:-

Web Dev .NET: ASP.NET MVC 1.0 RTM, Source, Docs, Videos, and More

Free IP to Country Database

Stuart Manning — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:52:09 GMT

This is a great IP to Country Database that I've used for GeoFiltering over the years. Updates are post most months

http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/node/view/6

Downloads | IP-to-Country.com

Maarten Balliauw {blog} - CRUD with ASP.NET MVC (screencast)

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:46:26 GMT

Maarten Balliauw {blog} - CRUD with ASP.NET MVC (screencast)

Coolite Toolkit - ExtJS ASP.NET Web Controls with AJAX

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:27:57 GMT

Coolite Toolkit - ExtJS ASP.NET Web Controls with AJAX

ASP.NET C# Visitor Real-time Session Tracker | Sarin.Mobi

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:25:22 GMT

ASP.NET C# Visitor Real-time Session Tracker

ASP.NET C# Visitor Real-time Session Tracker | Sarin.Mobi

Upload and Crop Images with jQuery, JCrop and ASP.NET

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:34:32 GMT

Upload and Crop Images with jQuery, JCrop and ASP.NET

jQuery Validation credit card extension

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:33:12 GMT

jQuery Validation credit card extension

Binding Custom Usercontrols to a Listview (or other repeater)

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:58:00 GMT

Just a quick not that you can bind Usercontrols directly to a Listview or other controller.

<uc1:product_details ID="product_details1" runat="server" _product_id='<%# Eval("product_id") %>' />

Where _product_id is the custom accessor

product_details.ascx.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

public partial class controls_product_details : System.Web.UI.UserControl
{
public int _product_id { get; set; }

protected void Page_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

        //get main image
        get_details();
    }

    protected void get_details()
    {
        myDataContext dc = new myDataContext ();

        var product = (from p in dc.tbl_products
                       where p.product_id == _product_id
                       select p);

        var images = (from i in dc.tbl_product_images
                      where i.product_id == _product_id
                      orderby i.display_order
                      select i);

        if (images.Count() > 0)
        {
            var first = images.First();

ltr_main.Text = "<img id=\"main_product_" + _product_id + "\" src=\"/client_assets/image_version/img_pre_window/"+first.product_image_file+"\" />";

//get details

            if (first.tbl_product.product_brief_description != null)
            {
                ltr_description.Text = first.tbl_product.product_brief_description;
            }
            //Details
            ltr_product_name.Text = first.tbl_product.product_name;
            ltr_product_code.Text = first.tbl_product.product_code;
            ltr_short_description.Text = first.tbl_product.product_brief_description;

ltr_product_code2.Text = first.tbl_product.product_code;

if (first.tbl_product.height != null)
ltr_product_height.Text = first.tbl_product.height.ToString() + "m";

if (first.tbl_product.diameter != null)
ltr_product_diameter.Text = first.tbl_product.diameter.ToString() + "m";

if (first.tbl_product.capacity != null)
ltr_product_capacity.Text = first.tbl_product.capacity.ToString() + "m<sup>2</sup>";

if (first.tbl_product.capacity != null)
ltr_product_depth.Text = first.tbl_product.capacity.ToString() + "m";

if (first.tbl_product.weight != null)
ltr_product_weight.Text = first.tbl_product.weight.ToString() + "kg";

lds_fixings.WhereParameters[0].DefaultValue = _product_id.ToString();
lds_color.WhereParameters[0].DefaultValue = _product_id.ToString();

ListView1.DataSource = images;
ListView1.DataBind();

        }
        else
        {
            ltr_main.Text = "<img src=\"/assets/nophoto.jpg\" />";
        }
    }

}

Example Page

MyPage.aspx (uses MasterPage - not required)

<%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/admin.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Range.aspx.cs" Inherits="Products_Range" %>

<%@ Register src="../controls/product_details.ascx" mce_src="../controls/product_details.ascx" tagname="product_details" tagprefix="uc1" %>

<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="cph_script" Runat="Server">
</asp:Content>
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolder1" Runat="Server">
    <asp:LinqDataSource ID="lds_products" runat="server"
        ContextTypeName="myDataContext" TableName="tbl_products"
        Where="product_parent_id == @product_parent_id">
        <whereparameters>
            <asp:QueryStringParameter DefaultValue="0" Name="product_parent_id"
                QueryStringField="cat" Type="Int32" />
        </whereparameters>
    </asp:LinqDataSource>
    <asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="lds_products">
        <LayoutTemplate>
            <div id="itemPlaceHolder" runat="server"></div>
        </LayoutTemplate>
            <ItemTemplate><%# Eval("product_id") %>-test
                <uc1:product_details ID="product_details1" runat="server" _product_id='<%# Eval("product_id") %>' />
            </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:ListView>
</asp:Content>

JQuery File Upload Plugin Script - Single and Multiple File Uploads with JQuery - RonnieSan

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:00:34 GMT

JQuery File Upload Plugin Script - Single and Multiple File Uploads with JQuery - RonnieSan

15 Seconds : Simplified and Extended Data Binding Syntax in ASP.NET 2.0

Stuart Manning — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:11:15 GMT

15 Seconds : Simplified and Extended Data Binding Syntax in ASP.NET 2.0