Brian Bailey: Developing in .NET

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 04:08:09 GMT

The Daring Fireball Interview. A great developer interview with Brent Simmons by John Gruber for Daring Fireball. Brent is an excellent Macintosh programmer, so no .NET information here, but a lot of good information on the life of an independent developer.[ranchero.com]

Sun, 02 Mar 2003 04:56:53 GMT

On Thursday, I had my first class in my 5-month quest for the MCSD certification. I hope this weblog will document the process both for me and for others who are considering jumping in with both feet.

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:35:50 GMT

I came across this Microsoft document that explains the trouble I've been having with setting the app.config file by editing the project file.

The file specified by the ConfigurationOverrideFile property will be renamed to web.config when the project is deployed. This property is meaningful only for Web projects.

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 14:43:13 GMT

Web Services: Objects or XML Endpoints?. Matthew McDonald, coauthor of Programming .NET Web Services offers valuable advice for every .NET Web service programmer. [O'Reilly Network Articles]

Tue, 17 Sep 2002 19:07:56 GMT

I have always assumed that the automatic image resizing that occured within Internet Explorer was specific to XP. Well, of course, it has nothing to do with XP and everything to do with IE 6. I finally became frustrated enough to investigate and at last found the source of this annoying setting.

Try Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Multimedia -> Enable automatic image resizing and turn it off. I promise you'll be happy you did. Now when you click on a screenshot it will be actually be readable!

Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:19:10 GMT

Put simply, never move or copy more than one SQL 2000 database at a time. Invariably, you will find the users for each copy of the database removed or corrupted is some way. Nevertheless, if you do run into trouble, this Microsoft How-To may be of some help.

Fri, 13 Sep 2002 15:43:11 GMT

Angry Coder has a good column on Visual Studio .NET problems, including something I will definitely try the next time my environment is muddled beyond repair.

"I usually need to close down VS.NET and re-open it at least once per day because of some weird thing it is doing. Sometimes the problem doesn't go away and I eventually learned that deleting the VSWebCache fixes the problem. I even went so far as to create a batch file to do this automatically and I added it to the External Tools menu in the IDE." [Ken McNamee]

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 22:43:00 GMT

Expiring Pages in ASP.NET

These are the methods to force a server request when a page is accessed within the browser. Unfortunately, none of these have worked consistently, and none have had any effect on the browser's BACK button.

Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);

<%@ OutputCache Location="None" %>

this.Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.Now);

this.Response.Expires = -1;

if (String(Session["SessionUser"]) == "") SignOut();

And lastly, IIS > Default Web Site > Properties > HTTP Headers > Enable Content Expiration

Wed, 07 Aug 2002 16:28:52 GMT

Application Center Load Balancing

The cluster controller must have two NIC cards, as do all cluster members. The front end adapter will have two IP addresses assigned to it. First, the dedicated static IP for the server itself. Second, the virtual cluster IP address. The back end adapter requires a single IP address located on a different subnet.

Netbios must be bound to each adapter.

The cluster name is not registered in DNS by default. I created a new host record within the forward lookup zone, which then created the appropriate PTR record within the reverse lookup zone.

NLB Affinity should be set to Single for an intranet and Class C for an internet.

Fri, 02 Aug 2002 18:12:37 GMT

During a recent Microsoft chat, a Microsoft employee had this to say about Visual Source Safe, "VSS is best suited for smaller working teams. It is not designed for large distributed teams like those frequently found in the enterprise space. It is in the processes of being updated but I'm afraid I don't know the details." This helps explain why we have always had trouble imagining how large teams could use VSS, when we experience problems with only five developers. They mention Merant's PVCS and Rational's Clearcase as alternatives.

Fri, 02 Aug 2002 16:41:15 GMT

mscorcfg.msc is a MMC for configuring .NET security.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 22:58:45 GMT

Sample C# session code

HttpSessionState userSession = HttpContext.Current.Session;
userSession.Timeout = 10;
userSession["DefaultHomePage"] = "www.fellowshipchurch.com";
userSession["ValidUser"] = true;
Debug.WriteLine("The session timeout is " + userSession.Timeout.ToString() + " " + Session.Timeout.ToString());
userSession["DefaultMinistry"] = "Spiritual Development";
Debug.WriteLine("The session ID is " + Session.Contents.SessionID.ToString();
Session.Contents.RemoveAll();

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 22:45:16 GMT

When you begin a .NET web application project, the global.asax file is automatically created. Within the file is a method called protected void Session_End (Object sender, EventArgs e). For a number of days, I made numerous attempts to have code within this method called, all to no avail. While scouring web message boards, I came across a couple of VB code samples that involved Session_End, but happen to use the name Session_OnEnd.

As soon I changed the name of the method to Session_OnEnd and terminated a session, the code was called (using C#)! As far as I can tell, the session start method can be either Session_Start or Session_OnStart.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 22:17:17 GMT

Each Active Directory object has four unique names.

Distinguished name (DN): The DN contains the full information (i.e. path) needed to retrieve the object. It utilizes the DomainComponentName (DC), OrganizationalUnitName (OU), and the object's CommonName (CN). For example, /DC=fc.com/OU=Main/CN=support.

Relative distinguished name (RDN): The RDN is the CommonName (CN) portion of the DN.

Globally unique identifiers (GUID): A 128-bit unique, numerical identifier of each object.

User principal names (UPN): support@fc.com

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:59:33 GMT

There are two SQL Server utilities from the Resource Kit to pay particular attention to. First is the DBManagement MMC for performance and statistics. The second is Database Hammer for load testing. They are both located in the ToolsandSamples folder on the CD.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:55:24 GMT

Active/Active Cluster

For active/active mode, you have more than one SQL instance. Each instance should have its own disk array to host database files. When failover happens, both SQL instances will run on the remaining node.

Two shared storage areas are used. In a normal working state, each is controlled by one node in the cluster, so both data and log must reside on that same shared storage.

With Active/Active you have two Clustered Resource Groups. One runs with DB01 as primary and DB02 as secondary. The other uses DB02 as primary and DB01 as secondary. Under normal circumstances, each system is running its own Resource Group, taking on the other as additional work if there is a failure of that other system. For these situations you need a separate Virtual Server for each of the Clustered Resource Groups.

You are running SQL server on both nodes. Each SQL instance will have one dedicated shared disk. From which node the instance is running is of no significance, since the data files are on the shared drive.

Tips compiled from numerous SQL related newsgroups.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:49:14 GMT

Active/Passive Cluster

One shared storage area which is controlled by whichever node is currently active.

One Clustered Resource Group which runs on one system (node) only at any given time. The secondary system is only used in the event of failure of the Primary.

One SQL instance.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:44:30 GMT

SQL Cluster

The Quorum drive should be on its own physical disk array (RAID 1).

Although it is recommended that the quorum drive only be used by the quorum, MSDTC is an exception to this rule.

Cluster disk resources used by SQL Server should not be used for other cluster services (such as the quorum drive, file or printer shares, or Internet Information servers) unless the cluster has only one cluster disk resource. If you do use the SQL Server cluster disk for any of these resources, it may significantly affect your failover time and may also initiate failovers of SQL Server when no SQL Server problem exists.

All drives that are used by the database when restored must have a dependency on the SQL Server cluster resource. Check the dependencies you will find that not all of your drives are listed.

Your clients connect to a virtual server without knowing which physical system is currently handling the Clustered Resource Group.

In sql server, instance is a sql service not database. If you have 2 instances on the cluster, that means you have 2 virtual sql servers with separate names. Each virtual sql server has a set of databases on it. Both sql server can run on same node in the cluster or one on each node. When failover happens, affected sql service will failover to active node from failed node but still holds virtual sql server name and all databases in it. Unaffected sql service will not take over databases from affected sql service. From user point of view, nothing is change even it runs on another node now.

Tips compiled from numerous SQL related newsgroups.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:15:45 GMT

Visual SourceSafe

For Administrators

Run Analyze & Repair on database once per week.

Synchronize time between fc-devapp01 and workstations.

Perform daily FULL backups of the SourceSafe database.

For Users

Only use the IDE for managing files.

Do not check out and check in files from both VSS and the IDE. Doing this only once causes the files to get out of sync.

Save all web projects to http://localhost/projectname.

Within Visual Studio, create blank Solutions, followed by Projects within the Solution.

When opening a project for the first time, choose Open from Source Control.

The next time you open the project, use Open Project.

For web applications, it is recommended that you check out the entire solution if possible.

A project can be part of more than one solution, but a solution must be unique.

When you check out a web form (aspx) or code-behind file (aspx.cs), VS .NET automatically checks out both files.

Rename or deletions that are performed with the Visual Studio .NET IDE are not automatically propagated to VSS and vice-versa. As a result you must use VSS Explorer in conjunction with Visual Studio .NET.

Tips compiled primarily from Microsoft's Team Development Guide for SourceSafe.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 19:54:46 GMT

.NET Web Deployment

If you are using VS.NET, the only files you need to copy to the production server are the DLL (found in the bin directory) and aspx pages.

If there is change in code-behind only, you need only copy the new dll to the server's bin folder. If there is a change in the UI then copy the aspx files as well.

Create a deployment project for your web app inside the same solution. Simply using Copy Project and other basic methods will most likely not work with more advanced projects. Additionally, Crystal Reports requires various merge modules which are not captured by these methods.

If you run into an "unrecoverable build error" when building a Setup and Deployment project, close all editors and the Solution Explorer. If you continue having trouble, try repairing your VS .NET installation.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 19:43:17 GMT

IIS

To use more than 2GB of RAM on an IIS server, use the /3GB switch in boot.ini

From Dell support: "By default, Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server permits only 2GB of the installed memory to be allocated as user memory. With the advent of Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server user applications like Exchange can utilize up to 3GB of memory. The remaining 1GB of a 4GB system can be reserved as system memory for use by the Windows 2000 Advanced Server system and is unavailable as user memory. After installing Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server you can modify your system to utilize the 4GB of memory. To enable the 3GB user memory feature you will need to edit the system hidden file c:\boot.ini and add the command line option /3GB to the boot up string and reboot your system."

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)WINNT="Windows 2000 Advanced Server [3GB user]" /3GB

The Memory: Page Faults/Sec Counter The Memory: Page Faults/sec counter monitors the number of times an operating system virtual page was not found in memory. When a page is not found in memory, the operating system must retrieve the page from disk. The time it takes to retrieve a page from disk is always longer than the time required to retrieve the page from memory. A number consistently above zero indicates too much memory allocated to an application and not enough to Windows NT.

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:58:05 GMT

Using Amazon's New Web Services. Amazon.com recently launched its Web services API initiatives, allowing customers to integrate its vast online content with their own web site. The author demonstrates how you can make use of this Web service using Visual Studio .NET. [O'Reilly Network Articles]