Marek Sienkiewicz

06 January 2010 Tips

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This is just a muse nothing serious and I doubt whether it would be the method that most would choose.

Turn the body html tag into a server side control with <body id = “PageBody”>

In the code behind add Imports System.Drawing at the top of the page and then the following script under the page load event:

Dim redColor As Integer

Dim greenColor As Integer

Dim blueColor As Integer

Dim surpriseColor As New Random

redColor = surpriseColor.Next(0, 255)

greenColor = surpriseColor.Next(0, 255)

blueColor = surpriseColor.Next(0, 255)

PageBody.Attributes.Add("bgColor", Color.FromArgb _
(redColor, greenColor, blueColor).ToArgb)

Now every time the page is refreshed a new background colour is generated.

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03 January 2010 Tips

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By default the DataList control does not have built in paging capability, however we can get round this by using the PagedDataSource class and some code. This is all well documented on the Net, my problem however, was using:

         FirstPage.Enabled = Not pagedData.IsFirstPage
        PrevPage.Enabled = Not pagedData.IsFirstPage
        NextPage.Enabled = Not pagedData.IsLastPage
        LastPage.Enabled = Not pagedData.IsLastPage

Caused the site to fail W3C validation

A work around that worked for me:

If Not pagedData.IsFirstPage Then
            FirstPage.Visible = True
        Else
            FirstPage.OnClientClick = "return false"
            FirstPage.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.Gray
            FirstPage.Attributes.Add("onmouseover", "this.className='hover'")
        End If

        If Not pagedData.IsFirstPage Then
            PrevPage.Visible = True
        Else
            PrevPage.OnClientClick = "return false"
            PrevPage.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.Gray
            PrevPage.Attributes.Add("onmouseover", "this.className='hover'")
        End If
        If Not pagedData.IsLastPage Then
            NextPage.Visible = True
        Else
            NextPage.OnClientClick = "return false"
            NextPage.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.Gray
            NextPage.Attributes.Add("onmouseover", "this.className='hover'")
        End If
        If Not pagedData.IsLastPage Then
            LastPage.Visible = True
        Else
            LastPage.OnClientClick = "return false"
            LastPage.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.Gray
            LastPage.Attributes.Add("onmouseover", "this.className='hover'")
        End If

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08 January 2009 Tips

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Let’s first set up the database. Open Sql Server Management Studio Express and in the Object Explorer right click Databases >New Database. Choose a database name something like MyBlog. Leave Initial size and autogrowth at default. Drill down to your new database MyBlog in the Object Explorer on the left and right click Tables > New Table. Start filling in the column names and data types, starting off with EntryID with the datatype set at Integer. Set the EntryID as the primary key. In the properties dialogue box drill down till you see Identity Specification, expand and change Is Identity to Yes and set the Identity Increment to something like 4.

Next, back to the top in column name under EntryID enter Title with data type varchar(50) followed by Entry with data type text, Image with data type varchar(50) and finally Date with data type datetime. Make sure the Allow Nulls column is unchecked apart form the Image column. Save and close the table. Enter Entries as the name for the table.

Now let’s add some data to the table to get things moving along. Drill down to the MyBlog database expand tables and right click dbo.Entries > Open Table. Enter some data in the rows for example My first entry in the Title field, some Lorem Ipsum in the Entry field, the Image field Null and 01/01/200900:00:00 in the Date field. Repeat the exercise for a couple of more rows and save and close the table.

Ok, so now we have some data to work with. Open Visual Studio and select New Web Site and change the name from the default to something more appropriate like MyBlog. Next make sure you’re viewing the Server Explorer window, View > Server Explorer and expand Data Connections and drill down till you find "netsdk.MyBlog.dbo. Expand the MyBlog database and you will see your table Entries.

Open the solution explorer and right click App_Code and add new Folder naming the folder DAL. Next right click the DAL folder and choose Add New Item. From the list presented choose DataSet and change the name from DataSet1 to MyBlog. After a moment or two the TableAdapter Configuration wizard will open. Choose New Connection. In the Server name textbox type (Local)\NETSDK. Make sure select or enter a database name is selected and from the drop down list choose the MyBlog database. Click OK > Next. When asked whether you want to save the connection string to the application configuration file make sure that the yes box is checked. Click Next.

In the Choose a Command Type dialogue box choose Use SQL statements, then click Next and enter SELECT * FROM Entries. In the Choose Methods to Generate dialogue box Fill a Data Table and Return a Data Table should both be checked. Change the method name GetData to something like GetEntries and click Next > Finish. If all went well you should now be looking at the Data Table in design view. Change the name of the Data Table from Data Table 1 to EntryPosts and making sure that Fill,GetEntries is highlighted right clik and choose Preview Data. Click onto the preview button and the results will be displayed. Click Close.

Open the default page and while in design view drag a Grid View control from the toolbox save the page. Now, go to the code behind of the Default page and select Page Events and the declaration Load. Enter the following code block under the Page_Load event:

Dim PostAdapter As New MyBlogTableAdapter.EntryPostsTableAdapter

GridView1.DataSource = PostAdapter.GetEntries

GridView1.DataBind()

Save and run the project and you should see data displayed on the Web page.

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17 November 2008 Tips

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Copy and paste the code below into your App_Code folder. To do this right click App_Code choose Add New Item > Class choose vb as the language and name the class PingTechnorati or something similar.

Next set the blog URL to your own blog address and the blogName to the information entered into the <title> tag in the <head> section of your blog HTML or if you're generating the title dynamically Page.Title in the Page_Load event of your default page.

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic

Imports System.Net

Imports System.Xml

Imports system.IO

Public Class PingTechnorati

Public Shared Sub PingSites()

    Dim pingURL As String = "http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping"
    Dim blogURL As String = "blogURL"
    Dim blogName As String = "blogName"

   Dim technoratiPing As HttpWebRequest = CType   (WebRequest.Create(pingURL), HttpWebRequest)
        technoratiPing.Method = "POST"
        technoratiPing.ContentType = "text/xml"
        Dim streamPingRequest As Stream = CType(technoratiPing.GetRequestStream, Stream)
        Dim xmlPing As XmlTextWriter = New XmlTextWriter(streamPingRequest, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8)
        xmlPing.WriteStartDocument()
        xmlPing.WriteStartElement("methodCall")
        xmlPing.WriteElementString("methodName", "weblogUpdates.ping")
        xmlPing.WriteStartElement("params")
        xmlPing.WriteStartElement("param")
        xmlPing.WriteElementString("value", "blogName")
        xmlPing.WriteEndElement()
        xmlPing.WriteStartElement("param")
        xmlPing.WriteElementString("value", "blogURL")
        xmlPing.WriteEndElement()
        xmlPing.WriteEndElement()
        xmlPing.WriteEndElement()
        xmlPing.Close()

Dim technoratiPingResponse As HttpWebResponse = CType(technoratiPing.GetResponse, HttpWebResponse)
        Dim streamPingResponse As StreamReader = New StreamReader(technoratiPingResponse.GetResponseStream)
        Dim strResult As String = streamPingResponse.ReadToEnd
        streamPingResponse.Close()
        technoratiPingResponse.Close()

    End Sub
End Class

Next simply call the method in your submit event for blog enteries.

Protected Sub btnPost_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As e System.EventArgs) Handles bntPost.Click

PingTechnorati.PingSites()

So now every time you post an article to your blog Technorati is automatically pinged.

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15 November 2008 Tips

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Using the <embed> element in your markup will cause validation to fail. Instead use the <object> element.

<object

type="application/x-shockwave-flash"

data="movie.swf"

width="425" height="344">

<param name="movie" value="movie.swf" />

</object>

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12 November 2008 Tips

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If like me you decide to use Friendly URLs you will at some point need to download and inplement a URL Rewriter.

For example say you have a blog article called Url Rewriter, passing title as the parameter in the querystring the url would be

http://www.yoursite.com/article.aspx?Title= Url%20Rewriter.

Converting this 'dirty' url to the more friendly

http://www.yoursite.com/article/url-rewriter.aspx

will result in problems when trying to locate the article in the database. The title field actually holds Url Rewriter and not url-rewriter and therfore the article will not be found.

The open source URL Rewriter is avalilable for download from

http://urlrewriter.net

Simply download the source files and follow the online instructions. In all probability you will need to create and register a Custom Transform.

To create a custom transform class to transform hyphens back to spaces right click App_Code > Add New Item > Class. Name the class something like HyphenToSpace and choose vb as the language. Copy and paste the code below:

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System
Imports System.Web
Imports Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.Utilities

Namespace Intelligencia.UrlRewriter

Public Class HyphenToSpace

Implements IRewriteTransform

Public Function ApplyTransform(ByVal input As String) As String Implements Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.IRewriteTransform.ApplyTransform

Return input.Replace("-", " ")

End Function

Public ReadOnly Property Name() As String Implements Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.IRewriteTransform.Name
Get

Return "transform"

End Get

End Property

End Class

End Namespace

To register the transform copy and paste the code below to your web.config file:

Then set the rule:

<rewrite url="~Article/(.+).aspx" to "~/Article.aspx?Title=${transform($1)}" />

Note that the tilde (~) only works with sever controls

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11 November 2008 Tips

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I recently decided to implement Friendly URLs on my site in a bid to follow recent trends. What I wanted was to remove character spaces denoted by %20 and replace them with hyphens (-). Using Server.UrlEncode simply changes the character spaces appearing in the web browser address bar to a positive sign (+).

Dynamic URL

http://macocz-design.com/Post.aspx?title=Impementing%20Friendly%20URLs

Server.UrlEncode method

http://macocz-design.com/Post.aspx?Title=Implementing+Friendly+URLs

Friendly URL

http://macocz-design.com/post.aspx?title=implementing-friendly-urls

Right click the App_Code folder > Add New Item>Class.vb

Choose appropriate name like FriendlyUrl and the language VB.

Copy and paste the following code:

Public Class FriendlyUrl

Public Shared Function GenerateUrl(ByVal strTitle As String) As String

strTitle = strTitle.Trim()

strTitle = strTitle.Trim("-"c)

strTitle = strTitle.ToLower()

Dim chars As Char() = "$%#@!*?;:~`+=()[]{}|\'<>,/^&"".".ToCharArray()

strTitle = strTitle.Replace("c#", "C-Sharp")

strTitle = strTitle.Replace("vb.net", "VB-Net")

strTitle = strTitle.Replace("asp.net", "Asp-Net")

strTitle = strTitle.Replace(".", "-")

For i As Integer = 0 To chars.Length - 1

Dim strChar As String = chars.GetValue(i).ToString()

If strTitle.Contains(strChar) Then

strTitle = strTitle.Replace(strChar, String.Empty)

End If

Next

strTitle = strTitle.Replace(" ", "-")

strTitle = strTitle.Trim()

strTitle = strTitle.Trim("-"c)

Return strTitle

End Function

End Class

Call the Function:

<%#FriendlyUrl.GenerateUrl(Container.DataItem("Title")) %>

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23 October 2008 Tips

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Using datetime data type will cause your feed to fail validation. The trick here is to format the date to RFC822 specification by writing a funcion or subroutine.

Private Shared Function GetRfc822DateString _

(By Val dt As Date) As String

Return String.Format("{0:ddd}, {0:dd} {0:MMM} _

{0:yyyy} {0:HH} : {0:mm} : {0:GMT", _
dt.ToUniversalTime())

Call the function

xtw.WriteElementString("pubDate", GetRfc822_

DateString(dr("Date").ToString()))

Another problem is that XML feeds does not support character spaces in URL's. Fortunately ASP.NET gives us the URLEncode method which converts spaces to plus signs.

xtw.WriteElementString("link", _

http://www.yoursite.com/article.aspx?Title=" & _

Server.UrlEncode(dr("Title").ToString()))

To get the RSS icon to appear in the browser address bar copy and paste between the head tags of your page or master page. Make changes to the Url and Title to reflect your feed.

type="application/rss+xml" />

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27 August 2008 Tips

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Place three labels and three text boxes on your contact page. Name them lblName, lblEmail, lblMessage, txtName, txtEmail, txtMessage. Make sure that you select multi-line for the txtMessage. Place a button and name it btnSubmit.

In your web config file add the following:

<system.net>

<mailSettings>

<smtp from =" you @yourdomainname">

<network

host = "mail.yourdomainname"

port= "25"

userName ="username"

password ="password" />

</smtp>

</mailSettings>

</system.net>

In your code behind page contact.aspx.vb add the following under the btnSubmit_Click event:

Const ToAddress As String = "you@yourdomainname"

Dim mm As New Net.mail.MailMessage(txtEmail.Text, ToAddrress)

mm.Body = txtName.Text + vbNewLine + txtEmail.Text + vbNewLine

+ txtMessage.Text

mmIsBodyHtml = False

Dim smtp As New Net.Mail.SmtpClient

smtp.Send(mm)

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17 June 2008 Tips

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Recently the site has been having problems with the Captcha control. The use of the Captcha for say a contact form greatly eliminates spam by presenting the user with a challenge and response test, the idea being that only humans can pass the test.

Unfortunately my Captcha wasn't working too well. Despite the correct code being entered a message was displayed informing the user to try again. It appeared to be a postback problem, which was resolved by removing some data access code from the the Page_Load event in the code behind of the Master page and placing it in the Page_PreRender event in the code behind.

This seems to have done the trick, my Captcha control is finally working!

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12 June 2008 Tips

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Someone recently pointed a problem with my site. It appeared that if the clients browser viewport was less than 880px then the horizontal scrollbar that appears doesn't allow the content on the far left of the site to be brought into view. This problem seemed only to effect IE.

The solution:

Change

#wrapper{margin-left:-500px;}

#wrapper{margin:0 auto;}

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05 June 2008 Tips

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I needed to show a count of entries against months in my archive list. My database table uses the DateTime function for the date field. This lists entries against the day, month year and time, for example 04/05/2008 03:34:45.

My previous blog entry for March showed that using

SELECT DISTINCT DateName(Month,Date) AS theMonth,
DatePart(Year,Date) AS theYear,
Month(Date) AS theMonth
FROM myTable
ORDER BY DatePart(yyyy,Date) DESC,
month(Date) DESC

listed the months in chronological order, however I found it extremely difficult to incorporate a count using a derivedTable and still maintain a logical order for the months.

After hours of effort and research the following solution was arrived at.

SELECT dateAdd(mm,DateDiff(mm,0,date),0) AS date,
COUNT(date) From myTable
GROUP BY DateAdd(mm,DateDiff(mm,0,date),0)
ORDER BY date DESC

To format the date and only show the month and year I used

<%#Eval(“date”,”{0:y}%> (<%#Eval(“Column1”)%>

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26 May 2008 Tips

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To select just the last 100 entries from your table use

SELECT TOP 100*

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02 March 2008 Tips

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I wanted to include an archive list, so that a user could click a listed month and all entries for that particular month would be displayed via a Data List control. I discovered that using the DateName function I could return the specific names of the months from the DateTime value in my database table.

SELECT DISTINCT DateName(Month,Date) AS theMonth,
DatePart(Year,Date) AS theYear
FROM myTable ORDER BY theYear

This gave rise to another problem whereby the listed months were in alphabetical order and not logical order.

February
March
January
December
November
October

Rewriting the query as

SELECT DISTINCT DateName(Month,Date) AS theMonth,
DatePart(Year,Date) AS theYear,
Month(Date) AS theMonth
FROM myTable
ORDER BY DatePart(yyyy,Date) DESC,
month(Date) DESC

Gave the required result

March
February
January
December
November
October

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27 February 2008 Tips

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I wanted to show the number of listings in a particular category. After some research and reading Scott Mitchell's book ASP.NET Data Web Controls, I came up with the following solution.

Code behind page under the Page_Load event

Dim cnn As New SqlConnection
cnn.ConnectionString = _
"Data Source = yourDataSource;" & _
"Initial Catalog = yourDatabase;" & _
"Integrated Security = SSPI"

Dim da As SqlDataAdapter
da = New SqlDataadapter(

SELECT category, COUNT(*)
FROM myTable
GROUP BY Category ", cnn)

Dim ds As New DataSet
da.Fill(ds,"Category")

dlCategory.DataSource = ds
DataBind()

Then on the html page

<asp:DataList ID="dlCategory" runat="server">

<itemTemplate>
<a href ='Categories.aspx?cat=<%# Eval("catergory") %>'>
<%# Eval("category") %>
<%# Eval("categoryCount") %></a>
</itemTemplate>

</asp:DataList>

And so now if you look under the categories column on the right a count is displayed against each of my categories. All that remains for me to do now is an Archive and the Search

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22 February 2008 Tips

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One of the problems with floating containers is that they will generally only extend to the depth of their content. Imagine therefore that you have two div's side by side within a containing div it can be very hard to create the illusion of columns using background colours alone.

The solution is to use a background image that gives the illusion of columns for the containing div. This image can be added to the containing div as a background image and repeated down the y axis.

The floating div's then sit over the top of this repeated image, and the colours will extend to the bottom of the page, no matter which column is longer.

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17 February 2008 Tips

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I needed to change the title tag on the fly. The idea being that when the user clicks onto a date on the calendar control for example to pull all the posts relevant for that date, the page title above the address bar in the browser would reflect this and would help in search engine optimization. Search engines rank pages with relevant titles higher than those without relevant titles. By giving this information you are helping the search engine understand your Web page through your page title. Search engines will quickly overlook a Web page with an unrelated page title. The solution for ASP.NET 2.0 is to use Page.Title under the Page_Load event in the code behind.

Page.Title = "post " + Request.QueryString("EventDate")

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums

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14 February 2008 Tips

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'The message could not be sent to the SMTP server.
The transport error code was 0x80040217.
The server response was not available.'

This means that username and password are incorrect.

Mail.To = "YourName@DomainName.com"
Mail.From = txtName.Text

Mail.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Text
Mail.Priority = MailPriority.Normal
Mail.Subject = "Your Reference"

Mail.Body = "From: " + txtName.Text + vbNewLine +
"Email: " + txtEmail.Text + vbNewLine +
"Subject: " + txtSubject.Text + vbNewLine +
"Message: " + txtMessage.Text

Mail.Fields.Add
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate",
"1")

Mail.Fields.Add
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername", "YourName@DomainName.com")

Mail.Fields.Add(
"http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword",
"Password")

SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "mail.DomainName.com"
SmtpMail.Send(Mail)

Note that System.Web.Mail is obsolete and
the alternative is System.Net.Mail

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04 February 2008 Tips

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Use the Color.FromName method:
Drawing.Color.FromName("#f2f2f2")

http://weblogs.asp.net

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02 February 2008 Tips

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'The constraint cannot be enabled as not all the values have
corresponding parent values.'

Set the constraint in the DataRelation class to false.

ds.Relations.Add("ParentChild", _
ds.Tables("Parent").Columns ("Name"), _
dsTables("Child").Columns("Name"), False)

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02 February 2008 Tips

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To get the value of a QueryString field for code behind use:
    Request.QueryString("Name")

    da.SelectCommand.parameters.Add(parameter, _
    SqlDbType.DataType).value = _
    Request.QueryString("name")

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http://macocz-design.com

marek sienkiewicz

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