Right'in Code™

Happy New Year!

As we enter into this new year, I would like to wish everyone a safe, productive, and prosperous 2011.

I plan to be more active on this site this year.  The goal will be to provide interesting and valuable content on a regular basis.

Stay tuned.....

Richard

Carolina Code Camp - Fall 2009 is here!

• Framework - .NET topics to enhance your performance on your day job
• Web - ASP.NET, MVC and other web topics
• Mobility - Windows Mobile labs, presentations and interactive sessions
• XNA - Development topics for the Xbox and Windows gaming community
• SharePoint - SharePoint labs and development topics
• Business - How to promote and distribute software you develop
• SQL - SQL Server management and development topics
• Community - Interactive discussion sessions on a wide range of technical topics
• BONUS - Topics and Labs too numerous to track and too good to miss!

You will find more information here: http://codecamp.developersguild.org/. A link to the registration form is at the top and bottom of the page.

MSDN Event in Charlotte 02/12/09

There will be an MSDN event in Charlotte on 02/12/09.  

The location:

Regal Stonecrest @ Piper Glen Stadium 22
7824 Rea Road
Charlotte North Carolina 28277

Topics covered:

Session 1:  Demystifying Azure - An Overview of the Azure Services Platform for Developers

Session 2: Deepen your Debugging - Tips and Tricks for the Visual Studio 2008 Debugger

Session 3: Developing for Windows Mobile Devices

You can register here: MSDN Events: Azure, Debugging and Mobility

It appears to be a information packed event.  I definitely plan to attend.

Richard

Amazon Announces the Kindle 2

Amazon announced the new Kindle 2 today.

I've already put in my request to my wife and kids that this is the b-day present I want.  Hopefully they will order it in the next few days.  I'm almost certain it will sell out.

Here is some baseline information:

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images

Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books

Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns

Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you

Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

I'm looking forward to it.

Richard

Raleigh .NET User Group is hosting a code camp...

On November 15, the Raleigh .NET User Group will be hosting another code camp. Tons of great sessions are planned, so be sure to mark off the 15th on your calendar and register soon. 

See you there!

MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow will be in Charlotte

The MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow will be in Charlotte, NC on December 5th.

The details of the event can be found here.

Topics covered:

• Microsoft's cloud computing platform
• Microsoft Silverlight 2
• ASP.NET - Dynamic Data, MVC, and a sneak peak at version 4.0

Every attendee will receive a free MS Press book on Silverlight 2.

See you there!

Enterprise Developers Guild Meeting on Tuesday 08/25/2008

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Available

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is available here.

Here is a listing of all the fixes.

 Have a wonderful weekend!

Hiring a few good developers

I'm currently looking for a few good developers to add to my team.

Here is a link to our website: http://www.amtdirect.com 

Listed below are the skills I'm looking for (3-5 years experience):

• .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5
• VB.NET/C#
• ASP.NET
• ADO.NET
• Web Services
• Ajax
• Visual Studio 2003, 2005, and 2008
• Javascript
• HTML/DHTML
• SQL (SQL Server 2005, stored procedures, triggers, views, etc.)
• SQL Reporting Services
• Crystal Reports

If you want to a be a member of an energetic team, working with the latest technologies, directly experiencing the results of your good work, and think your have what it takes to join our team, you can submit your resume here:

http://www.amtdirect.com/c_resume.php

or send an email to : jluciani@amtdirect.com

or contact me via this blog

NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE

Get Ready for Codestock

Chris Williams blogged that registration for Codestock is now open.  This event, scheduled for August 9, 2008 (It's a Saturday) in Knoxville, TN,  is hosted by the East Tennessee .NET Users Group and it looks like a great time with excellent speakers.

I'm not sure if I will be able to attend but I'm going to try. (Maybe I'll bring the family and make it a weekend.. ) 

Richard

TechEd Podcast by Wallace McClure

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend TechEd this year.  From all indications, it was a great show.  Wallace McClure has posted a podcast in which he interviews Kim Matlock who is in charge of pulling the entire event together.  You would be surprised how much goes into producing an event of this size.  My hat is off to Kim.  Great job!

Here is a link to the podcast: W. McClure Podcast with Kim Matlock

Enjoy!

Richard

The HiddenField Web Server Control

I have used the hiddenfield web server control on many many occasions.  Currently I'm working on improving my asp.net skills and came across a feature of the hiddenfield web server control that I thought was interesting and until now, unknown to me.

The hiddenfield web server control has an event called ValueChanged.  The event is raised when the value of the hiddenfield changes between posts to the server.  So what would be an appropriate situation for using the event?  Detecting when a hiddenfield has been changed client side via javascript seems like a good situation.  Let's take a look....

We first begin with setting up an aspx page with the following web server controls: a label to display the value of the hiddenfield, two buttons (one button to change the value of the hidden field and another button to post the page back to the server)  Here is a screenshot of the page source:

There are a few things to point out in this page.

Button1 is used to change the value of the hiddenfield.  This is done client side by setting the OnClientClick property of Button1 to execute the javascript function UpdateHF(see the header of the page).  The UpdateHF function uses the getElementByID method of the document object to locate the hiddenfield.  Once located, the value is updated to "200".  The code also returns false to prevent a postback when Button1 is clicked.

Button2 is used to post the page back to the server.  There isn't much more going on with Button2

The hiddenfield has a method called OnValueChanged that raises the ValueChanged event.  Notice in the page source the following line:

<asp:HiddenField ID="HiddenField1" runat="server" OnValueChanged="HiddenField1_ValueChanged" />

OnValueChanged is set to "HiddenField1_ValueChanged" which points to a method in the codebehind.  Here is a screen shot of the codebehind:

The first time the page is loaded we set the initial value of the hiddenfield and update the text of the label control via the UpdateLabel method call. (See page_load method)  The if (!postback) prevents this code from executing on any subsequent postbacks.

The HiddenField1_ValueChanged method is where the ValueChanged event of the hiddenfield is handled.  The UpdateLabel method is called when handling this event which causes the label to be updated with the current value of the hiddenfield.  (In this case, we updated the hiddenfield value to "200" which is displayed when the page is rendered.)

As you can see, using the ValueChanged event you can detect when a hiddenfield has been changed client side between posts which can be very handy.  I have attached the project for you to experiment.

Happy coding!

Richard

Microsoft TechEd 2008

Due to budget constraints, I will not be able to attend TechEd. [:'(]  Last year was my first time at TechEd and I had a blast!  So much information and so much fun.

This year I will be watching the keynote address from my office and the keynote will be a real treat!  Bill Gates is giving the keynote for the developer TechEd this year.

Here is the link to watch the keynote live:

TechEd Online

If you are at TechEd this year, have some fun for me!  I'm sure it will be a blast.  Maybe I'll make the PDC?

Richard

Cross-Page Posting

During my ASP.NET 3.5 study, I've covered the topic of cross-page posting. Cross-page posting enables you to submit a form and it's controls to another page for processing.

We start with a simple webform that contains a textbox, button, and label. Here is the aspx page:

Here is the code behind:

As you can see, this is a simple page that post back to itself updating the label text to display what is in the textbox. 

Now let's add cross-page posting functionality to this project.  We first start by adding a second page (Default2.aspx) that will handle the post from the first page (Default.aspx).  Default2.aspx contains a single label that we will use to display the information posted from Default.aspx.  Here is the Default2.aspx page:

Now, we update the Default.aspx page by adding a new button (Button2) to the page that has the PostBackUrl property set to the URL of the Default2.aspx page.  See below:

When Button2 is clicked, the page is posted to the URL defined in the PostBackUrl property of Button2.  In this case, the Default.aspx page is posted to the Default2.aspx page when Button2 is clicked.

Now we setup the Default2.aspx to handle the cross-page post.  In the page_load method of the Default2.aspx page, when examine two page properties PreviousPage and IsCrossPagePostBack.  The PreviousPage property represents the page passing control to the current page.  We check that this property is not null.  We also check the IsCrossPagePostBack property.  The IsCrossPagePostBack property is true if the page is handling a cross-page postback.  Next, we use the FindControl method of the page class to locate the TextBox control on the posting page (Default.aspx).  Once found, we assign it to a local TextBox control and use it to update the label control on the Default2.aspx page. 

Here is the code:

Here is the output from the Default2.aspx page:

That's it.  Cross-page posting is a very simple yet powerful feature in ASP.NET.

In addition, cross-page posting can be accomplished without using the FindControl method.  The controls that you would like to access can be exposed in the posting page by using public properties.  An example of this can be found in the sample code attached.

Richard

Programming for Windows Mobile

For those of you who are in the Charlotte, NC area.  Brian Hitney and Glen Gordon are delivering a Mobility Developer Roadshow event covering the .NET Compact Framework 3.5 and VS2008.  You can find the specifics here.

The event looks very interesting and I plan to attend.

See you there.

Richard