Al Pascual

How to fix Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerParserErrorException in AJAX 1.0

Albert Pascual ASP.NET Blog — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:40:47 GMT

Last year I wrote a fix for AJAX 1.0 on my old blog, looks like many people found it helpful, I wanted to make sure people understood that issue only happened with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0. I cannot reproduce the same problem with AJAX 3.5. You will encounter this issue when mixing callbacks and postbacks, as callbacks do not use Response.Write and there is not complete Requests to the server. This is a bug on the MS ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX 1.0, is not that you are doing something wrong, the framework cannot handle...(read more)

Quick note: I failed at trying to avoid using Google.

albert — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 03:47:14 GMT

I admitted, I failed at trying to avoid using Google as my previous post claimed. I've used other search engines and the reason I always go back to Google is not that is faster, without much frills or accurate, I went back to Google because the data was more recent. If somebody puts a page out there, Google will index it before anybody else, plain and simple. Google robot is everywhere every day seems like,.And Google likes to show it, check the Cache link on your search and will tell you what time was updated

I have checked with other search sites and none gets my new content faster than Google. Not even Technorati that CS 2007 pings every time a new post goes up.

So, Google, I'm coming back.

Cheers

First Community Server Developers Conference

albert — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 03:32:27 GMT

Telligent will held the first CS developers conference ever in Texas, Rob Howard and Scott Watermasysk release the news this week on their blogs hosted by CS 2007 of course. Sadly I won't be able to attend as Dallas, TX is pretty far from SoCal. Its a shame and I hope the historic event will be broadcast or podcast of some sort for people like me to watch. I already committed the time and airplane ticket cost to the Microsoft MVP summit next year. I hope next year I can be there.

As far as I know the CSDC or Community Server Developers Conference will be held at Telligent's office in Texas on October 20th and 21st of this year. The Agenda and sessions aren't released yet, keep an eye on Rob Howard's blog.

Registration will be $99 if you register before September 5th. Telligent will announce the new Community Server 2008 features and release date. I'm still trying to catch up with CS2007.

Now in my modest opinion, Telligent should call the conference a user and developer's conference instead of just for developers and there are many more users than developers for Community Server and many bloggers that use CS everyday can enrich themselves of learning a little bit more how to use CS 2007 with a few tips and tricks as well a great place to meet other bloggers.

Rob posted a few days ago something similar that he calls it "Social Networking and community groups" another name for mini-user conference I suppose. First one will be held on August 29th, again in Texas ;-(

I hope that Rob posts the notes afterwards for as to read.

Cheers

How to know that you are not important on the blogging world

albert — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:53:27 GMT

These are the signs that you are not a A-list blogger:

You don't make the Scoble list of top bloggers http://scobleizer.com/2007/07/30/technology-bloggers-what-are-they-good-for/
You don't receive an iPhone for free to play with.
Nobody sponsors you besides Google Ad Sense and you make 10 cents per month..
You don't have a professional picture taken, you used photoshop to cut your face from a family picture and part of your daughter's hair still shows with the shadow of your dog behind.
Nobody quotes you, not even your wife.
You don't have a twitter account.
Google robot comes once a year and leaves with only 5 pages.
You have to ping Technoratti manually.
You don't know how to spell Technolati.
Calacanis never has linked you.
Scoble does not have a picture of you with your iPhone
Nobody emails you with news or press releases.
You paid for Community Server
You don't use feedburner and you don't need it.
You don't know how to switch back from FeedBurner when you want
Nobody stills your content or rss.syndication feed.
You never been to a bloggers get together or invited.
You don't get any comments per post.
You don't know what Windows Live Writer or don't know how to use it.
You use Google Blogger.

The pain of software releases and integrations, how to avoid the problems in advance

albert — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:53:27 GMT

If you have been involved in a release of a big system, you'll understand what I am talking about and what I am coming from. When I talk about release and implementation I am describing a scheduled implementation that will take more than one month on the client side with applications servers, database servers, web servers, web services, load balancing and SAN clusters. Then the deployment on a customers side becomes a little hairy as they are lots of variables that can go wrong and do believe will go wrong. Besides the implementation time and being on side, you'll have to follow the new rules implemented by your customer on side. If that's no enough, you'll have to go step by step to make sure that each system, software, COTS and configuration is completely transparent to the customer. Some good customers, purchase the source code, so training not just in the application has to be provided, allow yourself another 2 weeks of training as least.

This are the step I follow and I learn to follow from project managers, release managers, QA managers and implementation managers. I have to be honest that not always I follow all the rules, but every time I brush one aside I regret the decision, also I want to disclose at this time, that I am not an expert on software release, I am a geek software engineer that loves coding and challenges, still I observe release managers and I learn to implement their procedures and follow their instructions, by doing that, with ease I'll be successful at my job.

A big software project is not just gathering the requirement and providing with a time line, you should also looks how will be delivered and who will be in the team for the client side. This is important as the DBA and system engineers that will help you while you onside because part of your team. Also write down any customers restrictions, travels, timelines, hardware and software license.
When collecting the software requirements check for any requirements that flags out a showstopper or you are not sure yet how to accomplish that task. If you don't, when trying to fulfill the requirement later will be too late in the game and the money will be out of your pocket. Remember you are not giving research and development, as the customer already signed.
Involved QA in a very early stages of the game, don't wait for the application to be on alpha release, start testing the parts completed, even if not working right yet, at least they'll provide you a to do list for your to finish.
Set milestones; not just to get paid by the customer, but to get step by step as mini applications and keep adding a milestone at the time. Do know go back and forward the milestones because is easier to fill a requirement now you writing something similar.
Force the complete internal releases, where the application is complete deployed once every x days, weeks, months. Do not wait to finish a feature, just release and let it go through the whole process from the beginning to the end. Will train the whole team. Use Microsoft Team Foundation Server if possible.
Bring subcontractors and COTS in the beginning, not in the early stages of development, they should be finished before you start writing code if possible, don't get yourself in a bad position in the event that a subcontractor cannot deliver what promised at dead line. Be realistic, how many projects finished in time? So when you got 20 subcontractors get their projects finish before you start your. Then implementation will be easier.
Learn from other people in your team and adapt to their ways. On your team will be good and bad people in your opinion, not everything is black and white and let people do their job and observe the result. Of course, if you are in the position to be responsible for their jobs, you may want to provide guidance and a deadline to allow time for you to clean up messes, and I promise you that messes you will clean up in any project and in any position.

So this is what I learn so far and the items I took by observing different position and projects. I'll revise the list every year, hopefully will grow, likely will change and adapt, hopefully will improve.

Cheers

ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 3 is out today!

albert — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:12:42 GMT

Download it from here and check out the fixes on the list:

http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=downloads.patchesServicePacks.viewPatch&PID=17&MetaID=1315#issues

Cheers

Visual Studio 2008 part 2: Features coming up on VS2008

albert — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:32:00 GMT

I have been using Visual Studio 2008 and checking the new features that are coming out with the new Microsoft IDE for developers. While I was playing with the new beta released internally and some people like in my case Microsoft MVPs and this version for the public http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx, please let me know what version it is after installing it as I did not had the chance to do so. Somebody was blogging great articles in detail about the features I was discovering. Scott Guthrie is always there to write a how to article in every product coming out from Redmond. If you are interested in finding out in detail some of the new features of Visual Studio 2008 I would recommend to check out his blog and subscribe. As he is the most read blogger at ASP.NET website.

ASP.NET AJAX will not longer be deploy as a separate toolkit for ASP.NET. You'll find them all in your toolbox ready to drag and drop. When you create a website you'll be able to specify AJAX support and the web.config will reference the needed dlls. No more installing nightmares for AJAX developers.
Intellisense window will be transparent so you can see the code below. I have to point out that many people asked to be able to move that box like the exception box, so you can move it out of the way or to the other side with the help of the mouse. Microsoft made it transparent by pressing the control key. No exactly what developers asked. A simple thing got more complicated, still an improvement as is nice to see the code around instead of being bothered all the time by intellisense.
Intellisense for javascript finally is here and I have been blogging since I find out about it. After so many years, they came out with this. Of course there is a little problem that you need to be aware in order to make JavaScript intellisense work. If you are including a js file inside another you need to reference for intellisense to work this way: /// <reference> file.js </reference>
Setting up JavaScripts break points now are possible without using the "manual way". What's the manual way you may asked? Well before the easiest way to set up a breakpoint was to add a line of code the at runtime will give you a javascript error, then "set the next statement" to be executed.
Multi-targeting different versions of the framework so you don't have to change the IDE every time you need to work in a project from a previous framework. Also means you can have javascript intellisense with your 2.0 projects and you can open solution files from any project without having installed 3 IDEs in your computer. Run IDE to rule them all. I have tried to find out that VS2008 does not target 1.1 and 1.0 frameworks, so, you'll still have to install VS2002 and VS2003.
Split View for preview and code so you can see the results of your HTML hacks on the preview on top of the screen, also you can put them side by side if you prefer, but I wouldn't recommend that as is easier using the scroll on the mouse to go up and down than using the bar. If you have more than one wheel on your mouse you may want to enable that.
Cleaning up the using statements on your files so no more messes on top of your files with using statements that you don't need anymore. With a click of your mouse you can delete the using statements that you don't need anymore.

A missing feature that I was expecting was to be able to create a web control from a user control. I thought that was coming out, so developers wouldn't have to re-write the control after finishing the proof of concept with a user control. Sounds like somebody will have to create a plug-in for VS2008

In summary a better, cleaner IDE for developers with a look and feel not far from VS2005. Your eyes will get used to the new look in no time.

Cheers

Cold Fusion 8 was just released today

albert — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:18:35 GMT

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200707/073007ColdFusion.html

Adobe announces the immediate release of Cold Fusion 8. My question; does anybody uses Cold fusion still after ASP.NET 2.0? Seriously is not a joke, I cannot remember seeing any project using Cold fusion anymore. I still see old websites using cold fusion, but I don't think there is any PM out there that says: "Let's start this new project and let's write it in cold fusion!"

Well not any PM with a job really! But I can be wrong, many web designers after finding or learning a way to write websites, they do not change or learn anything else. So they stay writing the same technology until becomes unsupported. Still some times after that, they keep using it, maybe until the OS cannot be found anymore when ordering a computer.

I'm taking a poll, if you still use Cold fusion for production development, drop me a line!.

Cheers

Moved to Community Server 2007 and ORCS Web Hoster

albert — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 14:40:00 GMT

If you see this message, everything went well.

This is a big news, after so many months I decided to move from Community Server 2.1 to 2007. I was very happy with CS 2.1 but the excuse to move came accross when ORCS made some room for me to host my website. Now my little website is hosted between the "big" guys. ORCS is where the high traffic websites host their programs. Thanks Steve Schofield. Microsoft MVP for helping me moving the database and running the script to upgrade it to 2007.

Moving to 2007 was painless, everything is stored in the database, so the only steps you need to follow is to take your database and upgrade it running the upgrade script from the right version to the newer version. I personally would like a migration program that can extract the database and copy into another website. I'll be working in a ashx to do so if I got some time next week. Maybe insde CS you can go to administration and put the information to transfer to another CS.

As far as I see CS 2007 is everything Telligent promised and more, looking forward to test the performance in this puppy!

Cheers

The MVP Global Summit date has already been announced as April 14th through the 17th.

albert — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:43:00 GMT

The MVP Summit is going to be in WA from April 14th 2008 to the 17th. It's time for all MVPs to request the time and purchase airplane tickets. I wonder how many points I got left on alaska airlines?

Cheers

101 ways to know your software project is doomed

albert — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:23:15 GMT

I received this email from a colleague at work and every line I read made me laugh, I had to share with you. Great job to anybody that wrote it:

http://www.codesqueeze.com/101-ways-to-know-your-software-project-is-doomed/

Scott Hanselman is going to Microsoft!

albert — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:16:03 GMT

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BlueBadge.aspx

The biggest blog geek out there is moving to Microsoft! Not just that, he is joining Scott Guthrie's team. If you decide to work for Microsoft, there is not better team than that and a very difficult group to join of course. Do you think that I'm jealous? Of course! Who will reject an offer like that?

In another thread, Scott Hanselman won't be able to keep the Microsoft MVP when he joins Microsoft. He is not an ASP.NET MVP.

Good luck Scott, your blog is going to get more interesting if that is possible!

Cheers

Restaurant Review? Stonehouse Brewery and Restaurant in Nevada City

albert — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:24:48 GMT

Yes, I am right now in Sacramento working and I took the rental car and GPS (did you ever met anybody working in GIS without a GPS?) and I went to drive north, the GPS flag for me a few places until this great wood burning smell from this brewery welcome me to a beer and sea food. The brewery is located between trees and was a perfect place for me to escape Sacramento for the evening. Don't worry, 7 AM tomorrow I'll be back to finish up.

So if you find yourself on the 80 freeway going north, turn left to the 49 and stop by this old place.

Cheers

ArcWeb Services can be evaluated for free.

albert — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:53:00 GMT

If you want to learn about GIS you can access to free training from ESRI and also evaluated for free and learn about geocoding and advance GIS:

http://www.esri.com/software/arcwebservices/index.html

After you create an account you'll be able to start using it. ArcWeb Services comes with all the data you need from demographics to graphics as well you can add data.

ArcWeb Services Offers Open Viewer Code and New Enhanced Layering Capabilities

ArcWeb Service can also be use by HTTP requests only.

Cheers

Pimping up your Motorola V3z

albert — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:27:00 GMT

I know, I should the the iPhone like everybody else, but my Motorola Razon from Verizon Wireless is enough to talk to you for now. Found a few things that makes my life a little more fun with the phone.

The drivers to be able to recharge the phone with the USB cable could be found here:

http://www.bvrp.com/Customers/Motorola/DriverTool.zip

And to use your phone as a modem, iPod or any other crazy idea that you may have:

http://www.motov3m.com/tiki-index.php

Have fun with your phone.

Cheers

Recommended book: The Reagan Diaries

albert — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 02:58:40 GMT

I have been reading this book while flying from Ontario CA to Sacramento. This is a great non technical book. Reagan was a very good writer as a very intelligent person. Something that shocks me a little about him, he loves his wife and writes about her all the time, but he never writes about the children. However a very enjoyable book if you like autobiographies.

Cheers

All I know about Visual Studio 2008

albert — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 04:58:56 GMT

I have been all week working in Sacramento thinking the being away from home should provide me a possibility to catch up on my email and my blog as well as read other technical blogs. However working until late at night and getting up early cuts your free time short. Business traveling is so depressing, spend hours in airplanes and airports as well those cold hotel rooms, instead of home. I did not mind to travel for work when I was in my 20's, but now having young kids is hard. Being away 5 days at the time makes weekends more enjoyable ;-)

Anyway, the first thing I know about Orcas, is not coming out on 2007, by the new name that's the first thing you learn as well. This is a great disappointment as many software engineers like me need to more into a much better web applications to compete. Visual Studio 2008 was the answer to bring all that inside one IDE. JavaScript intellisense, SilverLight, and new libraries can change the projects timelines quite a bit.

Something that I'm looking forward is to be able to use the same IDE and work with frameworks 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 without having to fire up or purchase a new Visual Studio.

I have been testing the beta version, thanks to Microsoft for sending it and the early builds. Takes a big part of the hard disk, I do not know if the release version will be that ~~big~~ huge. So far I find the IDE very stable, visually really easy in the eyes as previous version with sharper icons. When you spend 8 hours a day using that program, is nice not to get tired of the look and feel and also I like the editor did not change that much since VS2002. You don't want to learn a new IDE every time the framework version increases.

Did I talk about the Javascript intellisense? Finally Microsoft comes out with that feature that if my memory does not fail me, was asked without any success since VS 2002 or 2003. We still spend a long time writing JavaScript and more important, debugging it. Anybody wants to guess how many hours of our time is this feature going to save? Thanks so much Microsoft for this one, better late than never.

This is the first post of hopefully many other post as I keep testing it. This is a very enjoyable task really, and Microsoft was really help you allowing me to get my hands into the newest builds. The installation was really long, so I don't think I'll be installing every time there is a new version available, but I'll try to keep up as much as I can and I got enough time after the kids go to bed.

Of course if you want to learn more you can subscribe with Scott Guthrie's blog, he is always releasing great Orcas FAQs and reviews. As well you can see other reviews from Microsoft MVPs at http://weblogs.asp.net about this very welcomed product.

Cheers

Facebook using Maps, would they come to GIS?

albert — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:55:00 GMT

Facebook the new, better and professional, myspace now adds maps for you to show where have you been, as information displayed in a geographic matter allows you to understand better simple locations concepts.

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/07/14/vacationing-in-facebook-travel-maps-and-many-new-apps/

Something I like about facebook is the way the developers can interact with it http://developers.facebook.com/

This is the link to create an application with Facebook http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Creating_Your_First_Application

Enjoy

Sacramento here I come, again

albert — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:31:00 GMT

I'll be in Sacramento this week working, I look around of a Sacramento .NET user group without much success. What I found is an ESRI user group. Pretty impressive, nothing schedule for next week for me to learn something in the evenings :-(

http://www.mapaway.net/sacramento/contacts.html

Any blogger, MVP living in Sacramento? Send me an email!

Cheers

PS. Reusing this post to answer the question about CompositeControl. This is an example how to use it for the people that keep emailing me, just checking if they read the blog ;-)http://alpascual.com/blog/al/archive/2006/06/20/The-power-of-CompositeControl.-Another-skeleton-class-.aspx

Why I do not have an iPhone?

albert — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:21:46 GMT

Everybody is reviewing this new iPhone from Apple, everybody is buying one or if you lucky enough, receiving one to review. I wish I was in that group of people. But for now if I was an iPhone I'll have to go and buy one. Those are the reasons that I do not get an iPhone:

1 - Cost $500. Really a phone for more than $50 is paying to much

2 - My wife will kill me if I spend more than $50 on a phone

3 - Robert Scoble has one and does not want to share. Actually I believe that he has 2.

4 - Still too big to put it on my pocket and too old to carry it on a hip.

5 - You cannot install applications like the Pocket PC

6 - Already asking for a service pack/update? http://scobleizer.com/2007/07/11/iphone-update-rumors-cause-conversations/

7 - I'm not cool enough

Cheers

Community Server email subscriptions and alerts are great

albert — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:12:51 GMT

I'm late on the game as I just found this feature on CS 2.1, I can see that CS 2007 also has the feature Email Subscriptions and has escape me for all this years until tonight. Instead of using RSS or Atom this a will send you an email every time the author changes the content or better yet, adds some content. Of course I do use it now for Scott Guthrie as you know he writes huge articles on how to do x,y and z in great detail. If you do not know how Scott Guthrie is, again, there is no point for you in reading my blog!

Cheers

A must have t-shirt for programmers

albert — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:17:35 GMT

I found this t-shirt in one store online, I must say I use that excuse many times not to say every day :-) If wasn't that expensive I would buy it! http://www.syswear.com/view/tshirts?d=13 I had to share this with you as I know how many of you are developers.

Cheers

I received the Microsoft MVP ASP.NET Award

albert — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:45:00 GMT

I just received the Microsoft ASP.NET MVP Award. This is huge for me! Thanks so much to Microsoft for the great honor. A big thank you to Steve Dybing for answering all the questions!

Cheers

Albert Pascual

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=525C53E5-A636-4A28-B53D-A54E6CC8AE95

Determining layer by name at runtime

albert — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 05:09:10 GMT

Another GIS code bookmark to implement tomorrow. This post is from Rex Hansen, the most helpful software engineer at ESRI that I know. Even not knowing too many people at ESRI as I am still pretty new, I do know that Rex will take time to help with any technical question you may have.

He wrote this wonderful article to improve something that will provide a fix to find the layer name on the MXD for the geocode controls:

http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2007/06/26/Determining-layer-IDs-at-runtime.aspx

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.DataSources.IGISFunctionality gisfunctionality = Map1.GetFunctionality(0);

if (gisfunctionality is ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.DataSources.IMapFunctionality &&

gisfunctionality.Resource.Name == "MapResourceItem0")

{

ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.DataSources.IMapFunctionality mf;

mf = (ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Web.DataSources.IMapFunctionality)gisfunctionality;

string[] layerids;

string[] layernames;

mf.GetLayers(out layerids, out layernames);

for (int i = 0; i < layerids.Length; i++)

{

string layername = layernames[i];

if (layername == "counties")

{

SearchAttributesTask1.SearchFields = string.Format("MapResourceManager1:::MapResourceItem0:::{0}:::NAME", layerids[i]);

QueryAttributesTask1.PredefinedQuery.LayerID = layerids[i];

}

Cheers

ESRI User Conference Blog

albert — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:25:43 GMT

For all the people that email me about the link to check the podcasts, please find the link with the ESRI UC blog:

http://blogs.esri.com/Info/blogs/ucblog/default.aspx

Cheers