Rick Strahl's Web Log

Weblog Posts in November 2006

Adding a WCF MetaData EndPoint programmatically
November 30, 2006 @ 1:59 pm

WCF Services need to expose their meta data explicitly. Commonly this is done via .Config file settings, but it can also be done programmatically.

3 comments

Windows Mobile Device Center not available
November 30, 2006 @ 2:20 am

I'm still stuck without Mobile Device Center under Vista. My SmartPhone is connected to Vista and it's recognized and wants to sync pictures and music, but I still don't see any connectivity to Office and Outlook synching.

12 comments

ASMX Web Services and WCF Client Oddities
November 29, 2006 @ 4:35 am

I ran into some issues today with an ASMX Web Service called from a WCF client. Part of the problem is behavior differences of the entire service depending on whether a DataSet based method signature is included in the service or not.

9 comments

Checking out Windows Communication Foundation Serialization
November 27, 2006 @ 8:52 pm

So I spent a bit of time this evening mucking around with WCF Serialization. The efficiency, complexity and usability of Serialization is a key component in using any technology that needs to communicate data over service/application boundaries and so this is usually one of the first things I take a look at. WCF is pretty impressive in this regards for its flexibility and implementation.

11 comments

IE 7 Script Errors
November 23, 2006 @ 5:32 pm

Is anybody else seeing a lot of script or page editors in HTML pages with Internet Explorer? I see tons of sites that fail with script errors these days on load and result in a script error on Line 2 or Line 1 with the debug box popping up.

25 comments

Sql Server Bonk today
November 22, 2006 @ 5:09 pm

This morning my site went down due to SQL Server bonking out. Sql went down completely and wouldn’t restart until I rebooted.

2 comments

Strongly typed Resources in ASP.NET
November 22, 2006 @ 12:37 am

If you’ve used WinForms application you might envy the fact that there you get strongly typed resources automatically for your RESX files – the Compiler automatically generates a class that contains each of the resources as a property of the class. Unfortunately this feature isn't available in ASP.NET. Here's why and a utility that can create you strongly typed resources that work.

8 comments

.NET Web Services and Visual FoxPro COM Object Threading Issues
November 21, 2006 @ 1:44 pm

I ran into an interesting issue today with a couple of ASMX Web Services that act as a front end for Visual FoxPro COM object for a client. The COM objects were blocking at times or worse in some cases cross talking and stepping on each other's environment. Turns out ASMX Web Services don't have an ASPCOMPAT flag so it takes some work to get Web Services to behave with STA components like those from Visual FoxPro

6 comments

WCF Web Service Proxy Generation Problems
November 20, 2006 @ 1:54 pm

So I’m a latecomer to the WCF party and just to check things out I decided to run a quick check against some existing complex Web Services I have running on my site. I created a new WinForms project and added a new Service Reference (installed with the Orcas bits). The importer managed to...

2 comments

CLR Data Performance Counter Failures
November 19, 2006 @ 4:23 am

So I’m revisiting my performance counters that I run on my Web site that provide some rudimentary performance monitoring for my site. It’s useful to keep track of the number of open SQL Connections, number of pooled connections in the CLR pool, StateServer Sessions and a few other things. I’ve...

4 comments

Visual Studio 2005 and Intellisense issues revisited on Vista RTM
November 18, 2006 @ 1:57 pm

So now that I have Vista RTM installed I took another look at my Intellisense issues in Visual Studio Web Projects and I’m sad to say that this problem is still with me. At this point I’m running: Windows Vista RTMVisual Studio 2005Visual Studio 2005 SP1 (Beta) I continue to see the...

9 comments

IE 7 Protected Mode Oddities
November 18, 2006 @ 2:42 am

Running into some odd IE 7 behavior where my Internet Options are set to run IE in protected mode, while my toolbar displays that protected mode is off

14 comments

Looking for a new Music Player
November 17, 2006 @ 4:32 pm

As I mentioned some time back I’m looking for a new music player as my IPod is just giving up its ghost. I’ve never been real happy with the iPod – the software on the device has always been flaky and I really hate the whole lock in with iTunes which is as sucky as music software gets. I’ve...

17 comments

Vista RTM installed
November 17, 2006 @ 2:43 am

I just installed Vista RTM on my laptop and I'm happy to say that this was a very smooth installation. Install took about 20 minutes to startup screen and the machine managed to come up with all devices configured! Impressive especially since that never worked on XP...Couple of cool things that...

12 comments

HP ScanJet Adventures
November 17, 2006 @ 1:05 am

Ah here’s a fun one. I have a not so old HP ScanJet that every once in a while I need to fire up when I have problems faxing over my VOIP phone line (which seems to be happening quite frequently). So rather than faxing I scan the document and fire it off via email instead, or if necessary via my...

7 comments

West Wind Html Help Builder Update
November 15, 2006 @ 3:34 pm

I’ve posted an update to Help Builder today after a while of neglecting that product <s>. Actually, I’ve been quietly fixing a number of small issues and bugs that have been reported on the bug report site for Help Builder. Most of these have been minor but possibly annoying issues and quite...

Rounding down a Date in SQL
November 15, 2006 @ 2:36 pm

Dates in .NET are always represented as DateTime values which include a time portion. Sometimes I need to use dates that are ‘just’ date values and there’s no native mechanism to extract just the date as far as I can see.

15 comments

IP6 Addresses and Vista in ASP.NET
November 14, 2006 @ 2:33 pm

Here’s a nice gotcha you might want to think about. Vista ships with IP Version 6 and this may in some situations affect how IP Addresses are returned by your Web applications. As part of my ASP.NET tools I have a request logging module that hooks into the pipeline and picks up and logs IP addresses which promptly started failing with IP6 addresses because they are too long.

4 comments

ASP.NET Connections Fall 2006 Slides and Samples posted
November 12, 2006 @ 12:20 am

I’ve posted my slides and samples for my Fall 2006 ASP.NET Connections sessions online.

10 comments

ASP.NET Connections Wrap-up
November 11, 2006 @ 3:42 pm

Another conference behind me. Phew… I had a ton of fun this week at the Connections conference in Vegas, but as always it’s quite an experience to go through from my end.

8 comments

My first MSDN Article: A Two-way DataBinding Extender Control for ASP.NET
November 09, 2006 @ 11:59 am

So I was walking through the trade show here at the Connections conference today and ran by the MSDN booth and there it was: The December issue of MSDN Magazine, and in it my first article for the magazine. Woo hoo. It’s in the December issue and it’s about building the two-way databinding control...

18 comments

ResourceProvider Localization Sample posted
November 05, 2006 @ 1:23 pm

I’ve been talking for some time about about a localization provider I’ve been working on off and on for my session at ASP.NET Connections next week. I was finally able to post a small sample of what the provider does and what the admin interface looks like as part of my wwHoverPanel AJAX samples. The sample shows resource serving and resource editing in action.

8 comments