web developer, web designer

Github for Windows

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:16:31 +0100

Get this, get this now. An awesome metro based git client for Windows. Awesomesauce!

Insert, Update, and Delete Operations (LINQ to SQL)

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:03:32 +0100

Insert, Update, and Delete Operations (LINQ to SQL):

Why ow why would you bother writing SQL in your code anymore with stuff like LINQ to SQL. If you want to know how it works read up on the Unit Of Work pattern. I highly recommend Tekpub’s series on LINQ.

Back to Basics: Moving beyond for, if and switch

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:05:38 +0100

Back to Basics: Moving beyond for, if and switch:

Well worth reading Scott Hanselman questions the abuse of for, if & switch statements when programming to perform simple parsing tasks before offering examples and solutions to clean up your code. Very interesting!

Format a String as Currency in C#

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:05:01 +0100

Format a String as Currency in C#:

Handy when working with ASP.NET and C#.

How to limit the looping of a foreach loop

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:45:45 +0100

I had this very question, was about to write a traditional for loop to achieve it but then a quick search on stackoverflow turned up a super simple code solution shown below:

Resource: stackoverflow

SQL SERVER – Reset sa Password

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:22:18 +0100

SQL SERVER – Reset sa Password:

I’m working from home today and I normally don’t do much database work from home but unsurprisingly I had picked a password for the sa account I couldn’t remember! This handy post tells you what to do to change it.

Move a database from one server to another server in SQL Server 2008

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:50:04 +0100

Move a database from one server to another server in SQL Server 2008:

Detailed post on the 4 different ways to move your database information from one SQL Server to another. My preference being number 4, script generation. This is a handy resource as it’s not a very common task for small to medium sized websites & web applications and it can be hard to remember the best way to carry out such a job.

Temporary Tables – MS SQL Server

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:25:04 +0100

Temporary Tables – MS SQL Server:

Handy reference article when it comes to temp databases with MSSQL. Explains the difference between global & local databases well.

The new quoteme.ie was carefully designed from adobe fireworks...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:04:00 +0100

The new quoteme.ie was carefully designed from adobe fireworks to markup and then integrated into the Umbraco cms for data management.

View The Site

Design Patterns

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:34:00 +0000

There are a lot of resources online if you want to brush up on design patters but I can’t recommend pluralsights on demand videos on design patterns enough.

They cover:

Adapter Pattern
Bridge Pattern
The Builder Pattern
Chain of Responsibility
The Command Pattern
Decorator Design Pattern
Event Aggregator
Facade Pattern
Factory Patterns
Flyweight
Iterator Pattern
Lazy Load Pattern
Mediator Pattern
Memento
Model View Presenter (MVP) Pattern
Model View ViewModel (MVVM) Pattern
Null Object Pattern
Observer Pattern
The Prototype Pattern
Proxy Pattern
Repository
Singleton
Service Locator Pattern
State Pattern
Strategy Pattern
Template Method
Unit of Work

I’ve personally gone over the mediator & singleton pattern videos available from Pluralsight and in 20-30mins you get a great explanation, you look at a simple application from visual studio in which a pattern could be used to make life easier for the programmer, you then implement the pattern and see the benifit of using it.

For example, the mediator pattern program was a program that was used for tracking flights. In the code each flight had to communicate to the other flight it’s position so that they all knew where they were so that they would not fly into each others air space.

The more planes you add to this program that more complex and larger each class of plane has to get so it can check up on each type of plane and it’s location.

The solution was to create a mediator class so planes did not have to check up on each other, the mediator will do that for them and only relay back data to each plane if it needed to warned about air space intrusions.

Sound familiar? Yup, the mediator class was called TrafficController. It’s a real world example and it makes total sense.

Check out the other patterns I’ve mentioned, they are all explained this way with real world examples and code to back up the technical implementation of the pattern.

The code is based on the .NET framework and in C#.

Calculate a leap year in C#

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:23:50 +0000

Handy bit of code this if you have an application that plays around with DateTime a bit too much and you start seeing errors February 29th ;)

Column to Column SQL copy

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:27:00 +0000

Funny enough, I couldn’t find this snippet of sql code online. I needed to copy a column within the same table to another.

Get IP Address in C#

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:18:44 +0000

Here is a little snippet of code I use in ASP.NET to get a client’s IP Address, handy to have this info if you web application is designed for certain countries or regions.

Remote Desktop not allowed to use saved credentials

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:45:10 +0000

Remote Desktop not allowed to use saved credentials:

I was having this annoying error with remote desktop credentials not being saved at work. This little tutorial fixed the issue, worth a read if your having this problem.

SQL & Distinct Results

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:51:00 +0000

If you are working through a large list of potentially similar entries for maybe a cascading dropdown for manual location entry then you might find the DISTINCT sql command quite valuable.

This query returned 3800+ counties with tons of double entries:

Add in our special DISTINCT keyword and we get just 91 unique counties:

How to Increase Message Size Quota

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:28:19 +0000

Sometimes when dealing with web services that return large amounts of data you get the follow error message.

The maximum message size quota for incoming messages (65536) has been exceeded. To increase the quota, use the MaxReceivedMessageSize property on the appropriate binding element.

This can be fixed by increasing the maxReceivedMessageSize, maxBufferSize, maxBufferPoolSize, maxArrayLength & maxStringContentLength variables in your web.config to their max size.

The follow code shows you what the web.config basicHttpBinding section variables should be set to:

Tumblr Custom Theme Recovery

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:36:00 +0000

Tumblr Custom Theme Recovery:

For a second there I thought I had just undone all my custom theme work on my blog by previewing a theme that really did wipe out my html code. Thankfully Tumblr have a theme history set up. Use the link supplied and you can view the last 20 code changes you have made to your theme and revert back to the state of any of them. Phew!

Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET 4.5

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:10:25 +0000

Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET 4.5:

Great overview of the new bundling & minification options in ASP.NET 4.5

If you are ever trying to track down unsecure content on an...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:52:00 +0000

If you are ever trying to track down unsecure content on an https connection Google Chrome will identify any content being accessed on a non https protocol by inspecting the page and switching over to the console tab, handy.

ASP.NET Response.Redirect to new window

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:14:45 +0000

ASP.NET Response.Redirect to new window:

Bit a life saver, works great for iFrame apps on Facebook if you need the user to engage with a full screen web app outside of Facebook’s width limitations.