By Andy Hock on 4/17/2008 5:36 AM

I'd been tasked with creating a one-click continuous build, using CruiseControl.NET for a client's DotNetNuke applications.  Since it's a Microsoft shop, I decided to architect the solution using MSBuild instead of NAnt.  Since the client has an enterprise license for Sourcegear Vault, we didn't have a choice for source-control.  Personally, I consider Subversion a better product.

 

First thing to do: buy a book!  There aren't many choices available.  The best reviewed of them is www.amazon.com/Deploying .NET Applications Using MSBuild, which I would rate highly except for the pathetic index. Why people publish what are essentially reference books and make it impossible to find anything is a question for the publishing gods.  Su ... Read More »

By Andy Hock on 4/4/2008 3:03 PM

How to add a KickIt icon to the  DotNetNuke Blog module tutorial, examples, DNN

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By Andy Hock on 2/23/2007 1:54 AM

We are very careful about recommmending pay-based sites. Heck, it's the internet and there're tons of free code and things to download.

 

But if you want to learn DotNetNuke, or keep up with what is going on, or have questions about how to use it, DNN Magazine by DNN Creative is the place you should subscribe to. It's less than 50 dollars a year (and no, I don't get a cut for recommending it, nor would I accept it), and there are already almost 200 videos, tons of tutorials and non-moderated forums for you to ask questions of other DNN users.

 

It's a steal, IMO. And as someone who has created interactive magazines, I know how much work must go into creating one that is successful and offers good value. Lee Sykes, the editor at DNN Creative has created an interactive magazine with video tutorials, written tutorials, ... Read More »

By Andy Hock on 2/22/2007 8:46 PM

I've been converting some of my DNN modules from VB.NET to C#. When I first started coding in DNN, since DNN itself was written in VB.NET, I'd decided to also code the modules in the same language.

Lately, we've decided to also make the modules available in C#, and since some of the older modules did not use our Class Libary wrapped in a Web Service architecture, I decided this was an excuse to move stuff from VB.NET to C#.

There's no point in doing all the work yourself, of course. There are sites you can hit which can convert C# code to VB.NET (the best one is the C# to VB.NET based on #Develop IDE), and also sites which can convert VB.NET to C# (the best one I've found thus far, but still not very great, is the CarlosArg VB.NET ... Read More »

By Andy Hock on 2/21/2007 5:52 PM

Recently, I came up with a design (database and c#) for automating imports and exports of data for clients. It uses an asynchronous mail class to perform the following:

• A client sends a spreadsheet or delimited spreadsheet file as an attachment to a predefined email address.
• Each email address is defined with certain characteristics. For instance, we may know that, for a specific email address, the business_id is 226, and/or that a specific stored procedure will be called, but only if the data is formatted correctly, and only if it passes a detailed authentication procedure.
• The stored procedures are designed to output log files, describing specific errors, whether to only print the first type of an error (I wish Microsoft had implemented this in their VS2005 Java to C# Conversion Tool--it's worthless because there might be 4 different errors repeated 1000 times, but the report you see only shows the 1000 errors, not the same error 1000 ti ... Read More »
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By Andy Hock on 2/21/2007 4:56 PM

Like many programmers, I've dealt with so many programming languages, architectures, project development paradigms and such, that I can't cram everything into my head at all times. My resolution to this problem uses Microsoft Office's OneNote.

I have a OneNote notebook with lots of tabs across the top, for things like 'Patterns', 'C# Code', 'Javascript', 'CSS Cross-browser', 'SQL', etc. And for each subject, I have lots of right-side tabs for different snippets of code, tutorials and such, so if I ever need to recall something, it's seconds away from jogging my memory.

I thought I'd share some of the links I've found for understanding Polymorphism in C# and Java (I came from a Java world in 2000 when .NET first came out, so it always helps me to relate comparisons of C# to Java). Also, I keep a handy detailed explanation and code examples of a number of Patterns, so if I'm designing something new, while I know the pattern I'll need, I can ju ... Read More »

By Andy Hock on 2/20/2007 12:57 AM

I've been using Http Modules for a while, though I hadn't had a need to build an HTTP handler yet. An Http handler is needed when a specific file or set of files needs to be managed in a specific way. For instance, aspx files have an Http handler devoted to them. Essentially, anytime you want a certain file or files to be handled in a way other than using the normal Page event processes, you need to create an Http handler. If you remember IIS ISAPI extensions, well, Http handlers are the .NET way of implementing them, without having to directly attach ISAPI processes to IIS.

An Http module, on the other hand, is used when you want to add extra functionality to any page requested and responded to. In DotNetNuke, there had been an issue until 3.x with creating URLs that were search page 'friendly'. Google and other search engines don't deal at all with pages with the same page name and different paramaters passed in. For instance, an URL like the following: Read More »

By Andy Hock on 2/17/2007 7:30 PM

I have a ton of code snippets I store in my Office One Note. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my handy javascript window.open script that one can place directly inside an href tag. So I decided to google and find a script. An hour later, after having found at least twenty links that claimed to show how to create a new window that either do not work at all, or don't work correctly in IE and/or Firefox or Safari, I figured out again how to create a cross-browser window open.

The many incorrect tutorials claim things like putting the <A onclick="Javascript:whatever()" href="#null">...</A> and so on, just do not work.  I don't know where this myth started, but there are at least a dozen tutorials that assert this method to work. You'll just end up with a javascript error in any IE browser.

The correct way, assuming you want to open the window in a new window, that is cross-browser compatibl ... Read More »

By Andy Hock on 2/14/2007 2:07 PM

I just returned from the Miami Code Camp (it was actually in Miramar, but close enough), and came away impressed with some of the new things Microsoft is doing:

First of all, WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation is going to be big. I'm rarely wrong on these things (not that this does me much good!) The ability to create activities, to combine activities into workflows, and then to potentially sell these workflows, is something that I believe is going to be a big market in the coming years.

Especially since Microsoft also makes it very easy to wrap these workflows in web services. My only large complaint, and it's a big one, is that the only Role capability built into WWF are AD (Active Directory) Roles. One of the great things about Microsoft's AJAX.ASP.NET controls and .NET Framework 2 and 3.0 is the ability to create Roles using AD or the traditional Web-based Roles (similar to how DotNetNuke and many other Portal ... Read More »

By Andy Hock on 2/14/2007 1:56 PM

I've had a number of people ask me how to go about making a complete copy of a database. Since I've seen it explained elsewhere, but always in techy ways, I thought I'd give an English step-by-step explanation of how to do this.

It's a critical step to do every one in a while, and especially before you perform any upgrades, run system stored procedures, etc..

To create a copy of your database, take the following steps:

1. Click Start->Programs->SQL Server 2000 -> Enterprise Manager (EM)

2. Once EM is running, click on the 'tree control' on the left side, and drill down to Databases->'Your DNN Database'.

3. Right click on 'Your DNN Database' (whatever name you gave it).

4. Select All Tasks -> Detach Database.

5. Step through the wizard and follow the instructions. If there are users, I would log them out ... Read More »