Tim Huffam

The following javascript error occurs when trying to use the Telerik controls and you haven't updated your ASP.NET (2.0) web.config file correctly.

Error: 'Telerik' is undefined

To fix make sure the following lines are within the <system.web> section of your web.config file:

<httpHandlers>
  <add verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" validate="false" />
  <add path="ChartImage.axd" verb="*" type="Telerik.Web.UI.ChartHttpHandler, Telerik.Web.UI, Version=2008.1.515.20, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=121fae78165ba3d4" validate="false" />
  <add path="Telerik.Web.UI.WebResource.axd" verb="*" type="Telerik.Web.UI.WebResource, Telerik.Web.UI, Version=2008.1.515.20, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=121fae78165ba3d4" validate="false" />
</httpHandlers>

In my case I was missing the ScriptResource.axd line.   Also, you only need the ChartImage.axd line if you're using the chart control.

HTH
Tim

With a clean install of Scuttle I found that both the import bookmarks pages (importNetscape.php and import.php) do not work - instead the both display the source of the PHP files.

This is caused by both files not having the correct php declaration at the beginning of the file eg -both of these files first line was:

<?

However they should have been:

<?php

So just simply update these files.

HTH
Tim

I got the following error on a fresh install of Scuttle (0.7.2) on a newly created Windows Server 2003 with PHP (5.2.6),  MySQL5.0.51b) and IIS 6:

Warning: setlocale() [function.setlocale]: Passing locale category name as string is deprecated. Use the LC_* -constants instead in C:\Inetpub\Scuttle\includes\php-gettext\gettext.inc on line 131

Warning: setlocale() [function.setlocale]: Invalid locale category name LC_MESSAGES, must be one of LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, or LC_TIME in C:\Inetpub\Scuttle\includes\php-gettext\gettext.inc on line 131

After googling for a while I found this simple solution (here: http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/server-client-bookmarks-a-la-del-icio-us#comment-52097 posted by CharlesW):
Add the line: if (!defined('LC_MESSAGES')) define('LC_MESSAGES', 5);
to the top of functions.inc.php.

Thanks a million CharlesW!!!

It seems every time I try to install PHP and MySQL something doesn't work - usually there's either a file missing from the PHP distro or something in the install notes is missing or incorrect.  This time it was both.

I first tried the PHP msi install - first mistake.  As it does not include the MySQL extensions - neither does the 5.2.6 PECL zip file (I mistakenly thought this would include all the extensions).  So if you've installed PHP using the MSI installer - uninstall it (via Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs).  Also - you may need to manually remove any remants of this PHP installation manually - I had to manually delete the php directory.

Now with a clean slate do the following:

1. Download the PHP zip package from here.
2. Extract the zip - in my case into D:\php-5.2.6-Win32
3. Copy php.ini-recommended and rename it to php.ini (within this same dir).
4. Edit php.ini and make the following changes:
   1. Set the extension dir eg:
      extension_dir = "D:\php-5.2.6-Win32\ext"
   2. Uncomment the extension setting for mysql eg remove the ';' from the beginning of the line:
      extension=php_mysql.dll
5. Within IIS admin tool:
   1. Within Application Configuration (within 'Home Directory' of a site) add the php extension - mapping 'php' to php5isapi.dll (eg D:\php-5.2.6-Win32\php5isapi.dll).
   2. Within Web Service Extensions add one for php5isapi.dll (eg D:\php-5.2.6-Win32\php5isapi.dll) setting it to 'Allowed'.
6. Update the PATH environment variable to include the php dir eg D:\php-5.2.6-Win32.
7. Add a new environment variable called PHPRC and set to the php dir eg D:\php-5.2.6-Win32  (this part was missing from the install docs for IIS).
8. Restart iis (eg run iisreset from the command prompt).

Bingo - that's it. To test create a file called phpinfo.php (and place in the web root) with the following:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

The critical part to check here is that the output of this phpinfo shows the 'Loaded Configuration File' is set to the php.ini file you created above.  If PHP is configured correctly to use mysql it this (phpinfo output) will have a MySQL section - if this is missing - then something is wrong.

HTH
Tim

VSTS2008 has, on occasion, lost it's source control settings - specifically, the bindings to TFS server for a given solution and it's projects.

This seems to be because the solution and project files are not being updated when you use the TFS Source Control Explorer to do a 'Get Latest'  - a 'feature' of VS2008 which allows you to work disconnected/offline - however it seems to have an issue trying to reconnect itself.

To resolve we simply removed the local source directory and did a 'Get Specific Version - get latest'.

RickSW had a similar experience.

Tim

The following error can occur when executing the .DataBind() method on a Dundas chart object within an ASP.Net page (.Net 3.0):

Series data points do not support values of type "myclass", only values of these types can be used: Double, Decimal, Single, int, long, uint, ulong, String, DateTime, short, ushort.

I had set the DataSource property to a generics List of myclass objects (List<myclass>).

It turns out that this error is caused by a mismatch between the type of objects within the list passed to DataSource and the series defined for the chart.

In my case I had create 4 series but the objects within the list only had 3.  I'm guessing the same error would also occur if the property names of these objects to not match the series .ValueMembersY/ValueMemberX property settings.

HTH
Tim

1. Access the items directly eg with a linq expression eg something followed by .ToList(), .Single() or .First().  Line 9 does this in the sample below.
2. Use the DataLoadOptions class  - this is a way of telling the datacontext what additional data to retrieve.  Lines 4, 5 and 6 do this in the sample below (6 is commented out just while testing line 9).

'<tablename>' table
- Unable to modify table.  
Cannot insert the value NULL into column '<columnname>', table '<dbname>.dbo.Tmp_<tablename>'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.
The statement has been terminated.

When creating a new document and in Print Layout, Word sometimes places the cursor right at the top of the page - not catering for the top margin.

I'm not sure why - can only presume this is a bug.

The workaround, to make it display the cursor where it should be (below the margin) seems to be to view the Header then hide the header:

1. Select menu item 'View' - 'Header and Footer' (this shows the header)
2. Do the same thing to hide it (Select menu item 'View' - 'Header and Footer').

That's it - the cursor should now be placed where it should be - so you can start typing text and see it in the correct position on the page.

HTH

Tim

Had a strange occurance today...

In between writing unit tests in VSTS (Visual Studio Team System 2008 Developer Edition), for some reason VSTS stopped recognising the test classes as tests - so all context sensitive test actions, buttons, context menu etc for unit tests were disabled.

Still have no idea why - but I have a sneaking suspicion that some solution files may have been delete.

To get this working again I simply added another Test project:

1. Right click on the solution and select Add - New Project...
2. Select the 'Test Project' template then click OK.
   This sorts out visual studio - by adding in the solution items:
     - LocalTestRun.testrunconfig
     - <projectname>.vsmdi
3. Remove the newly added project.

This fixed it for me.

When trying to use sqlcmd.exe - and not specifying the server and instance name I got the following error:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn>sqlcmd -E -d master
HResult 0x7E, Level 16, State 1
VIA Provider: The specified module could not be found.

Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft SQL Native Client : An error has occurred while establi
shing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failu
re may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not
 allow remote connections..
Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft SQL Native Client : Login timeout expired.

 The solution is to simply specify the server (and instance) name eg:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn>sqlcmd -S localhost\SQLEXPRESS -E -d master

Note this article is primarily based on Microsoft/.Net technologies, although the principle apply to any technology.

Before development of any reasonable business software project begins the following areas need to be nailed down:

• Application Architecture (application structure)
• ORM (Object/Relational Mapping - data source access and translation to/from business objects)
• Base framework (system framework, helper classes, base classes, etc)
• UI.

There are many tools available that will dictate or guide the architecture and generate ORM and base framework.  Most of them do a very good job and fulfil their base requirement: to facilitate and speed up development.

Unfortunately there is no silver bullet - so the difficulty is choosing the right one.  The definition of 'the right one' will vary based on the application's requirements.  However there are some basic guidelines that will make this decision easier (listed in order of weight).

1. Policy.  Does your company (or customer) have specific policy that will dictate what you use eg 'We are only a Microsoft shop' - allowing no 3rd party tools.  This may also include things like 'only source compiled by us', which means you must have access to the source code of whatever products you use (this is also useful if you need to sign assemblies using your company's own key).
2. Security and scalability requirements.  If the application has to scale well, then it should be able to be deployed using an n-tier architecture.  Likewise for security purposes you should not be accessing your data source from your publicly exposed interface eg web apps or web services located in a DMZ should use another tier (an app server), located behind a firewall, to perform data source access.  The caviate to this, is to have your web app/service located behind a firewall, and exposed publicly via ISA Server (which sits in the DMZ and acts as a proxy to your app).
3. Application requirements and developer preference.
4. Ease of use - ie how long it takes developers new to the project to get up to speed with using the framework.  This can have significant impact on initial development and ongoing maintenance costs.  Frameworks that use industry standard patterns and underlying system framework code are good for this.

Often the underlying system frameworks are very similar - as most applications require a similar set of core functionality (eg validation, security/authorisation/authentication, string manipulation, logging, etc).  The Microsoft Enterprise Library provides a lot of this out the box and is a good start and some frameworks are based on this eg .netTiers. 

ORM and UI are large subjects on their own - and everyone has their own oppinion of what to do/what not to do.

ORM's

Most ORM frameworks will generate code either at design time or runtime.  You will have to determine which is more appropriate to your application - flexibility and performance will be considerations.

Two of the main issues around ORMS are:

1. Table/data model centric vs domain/business object centric, ie does the ORM generate code based on the data model or the domain model.  This is becoming a more controversial topic these days as traditionally frameworks reverse engineered from the datamodel, generating a class for every table.  This made the code easy to understand - but didn't always match the business/domain model.  The current trend is to model your domain first then generate top-down (this is actually nothing new - it's been around a long time in some of the original OO environments).
2. For database data sources, is the SQL run in stored procedures or dynamic/inline SQL in your code.  This may be dictated to by policy - eg most DBA's will insist on spocs - however LINQ introduces a, much debated, alternative to this.

UI's

How a UI is implemented will be greatly dictated to by functional and deployment requirements - however one must also consider the future of the app.  If it's likely that the app will be around for a long time then you should do your best to split out the UI from any business logic.  This is a long-known best-practice as it will give you flexibility and portability.

Knowing what type of UI's (simple web, rich internet app, winforms, commandline, etc) your app supports is a fairly trivial task.  Choosing a pattern to implement it is not so easy.   One of the most popular patterns for this is the Model/View/Controller (MVC) pattern.  This splits out the core components of any UI.  A more recent pattern is the Model/View/Presenter (MPV) pattern - this is similar to MVC, and is better for unit testing and TDD style development.

A popular approach these days is the 'convention over configuration' style framework.  Spurred on by the success of the RubyOnRails framework there have been some developments in this area in the Microsoft camps - initially by the Castle Project's MonoRail project, and now Microsoft themselves have got on the band wagon with their ASP.Net MVC Framework.  All these implement the MVC pattern. 

A really good article on UI patterns can be found here, and a good comparison of both MVC and MVP can be found here.

I hope this brief overview has helped shine a little light on this, sometimes overwelming, subject and, if nothing else, raise more questions - which I'll endevour to dive deeper into in future posts.

Tim