Rick Strahl's Web Log

Weblog Posts in February 2008

Digitally Signing an XML Document and Verifying the Signature
February 23, 2008 @ 3:41 am

Signing an XML document and then validating the digital signature of the document doesn't involve a lot of code - once you know how it works, but arriving there is quite the journey. This post describes setting up a certifcate for testing, signing an XML document with the Private key and then validating it with the Public key.

11 comments

Embedding ASP.NET Server Variables in Client JavaScript, Part 2
February 21, 2008 @ 3:47 am

This post discusses some updates to the wwScriptVariables class I talked about last week. This class provides an easy way to access server variables in client script, automatically expose ClientIDs as simply ID values and provides a mechanism for client code to send updated values back to the server to consume easily.

3 comments

Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working
February 14, 2008 @ 1:29 pm

Here's one idiotic change in Vista SP1: Looks like Microsoft decided to change the switch to launch the Terminal Services client so it can log on to the console of the machine/server to /admin from /console. The new switch to connect to the console is: %systemroot%\system32\mstsc.exe /admin I suppose I can understand changing the switch to /admin since it's more descriptive, but why the heck...

13 comments

Embedding ASP.NET Server Variables in Client JavaScript
February 12, 2008 @ 2:23 am

Getting Server Variables embedded into a page and using them from JavaScript code can be a pain. Following Jon Galloway's post a few days ago I thought that maybe a more generic solution that doesn't rely on ASP.NET AJAX and is more generic might be useful to make the task easier and apply much broader scope. The result is an easy to use, generic class that generates a JavaScript object from key value pairs created on the server with static values or dynamic control or object properties.

18 comments

jQuery Intellisense in Visual Studio
February 11, 2008 @ 12:51 am

Getting jQuery to work with Intellisense in Visual Studio is now possible after Microsoft updated script parsing code in a recent hotfix. Although there are improvements in basic parsing and some Intellisense is supported, by making some very minor comment changes to jQuery.js can improve Intellisense support drastically.

18 comments

Visual Studio Hotfix for Slow Web Forms Editing and Input Focus Issues
February 08, 2008 @ 7:58 pm

Microsoft has just released a hotfix for a number of issues that have been plaguing me for some time in Visual Studio 2008. The issues involved have to do with the visual designer and the HTML code editor and a number of different input focus and slow input situations. You can get the hotfix from here:...

7 comments

JavaScript Errors in the Mainstream
February 08, 2008 @ 4:38 am

I kept a list of a few major sites that have been bombing for me with JavaScript errors just today in the last few hours since I decided to write this up: Hawaiian Airlines Expedia Amazon's MP3 Download Site Facebook (Email app) Musician's Friend Checkout site Authorize.NET's Admin interface American Express Bill Payment Yahoo - certain news stories of the portal home page And here are a few more...

18 comments

Transparent Labels in WinForms
February 07, 2008 @ 1:56 am

One really annoying thing about WinForms is that there's no built in support for transparency for controls. If you want to create a label and want it to blend into any custom background colors this isn't inherently supported. Although there's a static Color.Transparent color property, when you apply to a label on a form it doesn't actually do anything - you get the same default background color...

10 comments

Update to LINQ to SQL Business Object Wrapper Sample
February 05, 2008 @ 2:24 pm

Last night I after I posted the LINQ DataContext post I realized that I hadn't ever updated the LINQ Business Object Layer example app for .NET 3.5 RTM. Although I've long updated the code, since I use it here in a few internal applications as a base business object wrapper around LINQ to SQL, I...

4 comments

Linq to SQL DataContext Lifetime Management
February 05, 2008 @ 1:55 am

The DataContext is the central object that holds LINQ to SQL together. This post talks about a few different approaches you can use to hang on to your DataContext in the course of a request, to pass between layers or to manage on a per thread/request level.

47 comments

Bank Logins and Twenty Questions
February 04, 2008 @ 3:23 am

You have one of those annoying banking sites that ask dumb ass questions just so you can log on? I dropped all my cookies on my machine a couple of days ago because I've had some issues with a variety of sites recently and so I lost a ton of my login cookies with various financial instutions. So...

21 comments

Let it Snow...
February 01, 2008 @ 12:29 am

I live on Maui in Hawaii and well, it's happened! Pigs learned to fly and hell is about to freeze over. So much for global warming, eh? This is a picture from across the street looking up to Haleakala and there's been snow on the mountain for the last few days. It's been unseasonably cold here on...

11 comments

Web Service Interoperability? Not from where I sit...
February 01, 2008 @ 12:15 am

I've been working on a lot of Web Service interop projects for the last couple of months all of which have been problem interfaces. For all the talk of interoperability I seem to be getting the short end of the "it just works stick" ending up with service that require endless fiddling to work properly for client access.

17 comments