I continue to learn more and more about developing websites with additional features. I’ve chosen ASP.NET as my preferred language for building web applications for most of my larger corporate clients. A component I use frequently with this dynamic sites are Session Items in ASP.NET.

As I build more sites I start using more and more Session.Item(”ItemName”) identifiers in my code to pass parameters from page to page and data control to data control. There comes a point where you start not remembering exactly how you named something or even what Session Items you’ve stored in the first place.
I’d think it …read more

This may not be a tip that’s too outstanding for everyone, but I’ve recently started employing the tweak to help me in my web development tasks. One of the challenges for me in development is that the data source for my web pages may change depending on my location on specific testing need. This tip shows you how to easily manage those changes on the fly.

Depending on the situation, I could be working on the development of a website while working completely off a local copy of the database. Later I may need to point the web pages to a …read more

Why in the world can I not get the built-in authentication controls to work in my installation of ASP.NET?
I’m running SQL Server 2005 and using the aspnet_regsql command tool to register everything. It appears that the aspnet_regsql works as it should, but when I try to configure the settings through the ASP.net Web Site Administration Tool nothing is working.
When I run the register command I’ve told it to use my local instance of SQL SERVER and the default database. I’ve tried both Windows Authentication and SQL Login. Nothing different. It appears to run fine, but then my site won’t register …read more

Today I’m attending the Microsoft Heroes Happen Here event in downtown Indianapolis. I’m attending as part of the developer track and the session I’m in is being led by Patrick Foley, ISV Software Architect Evangelist for Microsoft.
He’s briefly running through the “wave” of applications that are currently released and in the pipeline for future release. Lots of information is all tied around a few key components: SQL Server, Sharepoint and .NET applications.
A few keys to improving the web experience:

User Experience
Collaboration
Productivity

Focusing on the new features and functionality of Visual Studio 2008 centers around achieving the keys …read more

Just a quick follow-up on my previous post. I’m an idiot, the reason I can’t edit those is because I was trying to use a View. You can’t edit a SQL View, which is why the options wouldn’t let me select what I wanted.
Now, I’ll just be figuring out a work-around for that since much of the functionality we’re looking at was built around that specific view of information.
I did find some really useful websites though for anyone else interesting in teaching themselves more about .NET and Visual Web Developer Express.

The Microsoft ASP.NET website
Learn Visual Studio .NET

I’m working with Visual Web Developer Express and teaching myself as I go. Today, I’m learning more about setting up editable database fields and views with the Form View and DetailsView. The only problem is to get that functionality through the visual user interface you click on the “Advanced” button, and the window that displays for me has the options I need to enable greyed out.
What’s happening? Any quick help would be appreciated.

I’ve finally done it. I’m squarely heading down the path of forsaking the 10+ years of experience I have with Dreamweaver and migrating my skillset over to Microsoft’s Visual Web Developer application.
With more and more of my clients needing solutions based and operating with other Microsoft technologies, this just seems like the clear cut path to begin traveling down at this point in my efforts. If Dreamweaver had worked more easily and “out-of-the-box” with more .NET controls and resources, I probably would have stayed with it. However, they haven’t, which I believe is directly related to the purchase of Macromedia …read more

I’m just learning ASP.NET programming and am looking for a really simple way to enable a Reset button on a form. Let me clarify that, I’m looking for a REALLY SIMPLE wasy to enable a Reset button on a form. The keywords in that statement are “REALLY SIMPLE”.

I’m going to throw this out there as it’s giving me a headache today trying to figure out why this problem is occuring. Any insight from you all would be appreciated.
I’m developing a few ASP.NET pages for a client. On one of the pages I’ve setup the link to go to an error page if the connection to the database fails due to invalid or no data available in the database. Here are the three scenarios that are taking place:

When I view and test the functionality through my computer, the error page is displayed and directs the user back to …read more