SourceGear Vault

I don't mention products here very often but this one has me excited.  I have hated Visual SourceSafe for quite some time now.  I am sure that many of you share my frustrations with it.  SourceGear the makers of the popular SourceOffsite add-in for VSS shipped Vault at the VSLive show in San Francisco this week.  Vault is a complete replacement for VSS using SQL Server as a back end store and Web Services/ASP.NET as a transport mechanism!  It is a purely managed solution that replicates almost 100% of VSS functionality. I have no connection to the company but I have already ordered a copy.  They have a great starter pack at $599 for 5 developers.  I have just started using this product and I have high hopes for it.  Check it out.

Thursday, February 13, 2003 9:48:00 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

Read Only Application Object

Requirement:

Pre-Load the ASP.NET Application object and don’t allow other pages in your project to add/modify/delete. Basically, make Application read-only.

Solution:

         private void SetApplicationReadOnlyStatus( bool state ) {
                  Type type = Application.GetType().BaseType;
                  PropertyInfo readPropInfo = type.GetProperty("IsReadOnly",  BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance) ;
                  if( readPropInfo != null ) {
                        readPropInfo.SetValue( Application,Convert.ChangeType(state,readPropInfo.PropertyType ) ,null);
                  }
            }
            private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
                  Application["MyKey"] = "myValue";
                  // Set application to readonly so that we will not allow any changes.
                  SetApplicationReadOnlyStatus( true );
                  try
                  {
                        // Try setting a value 
                        Application["MyKey"] = "New value";
                        Response.Write("You won't see this");
                  }
                  catch(Exception ex) {
                        // You'll end up here
                        Response.Write(ex.Message);
                }
            }

Thanks to Sairama for the code!

Friday, January 10, 2003 4:20:52 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

PAG ASP.NET Security Beef

I know that a number of folks out there in the wild have been reading this document.  I have been reading it in parts over the last couple of weeks.

I found it extremely strange how insistent they seem to be on encrypting the connection between the application server and the database server.  To the extent that they are talking about running it over IPSec or SSL.  They don't really address their reasoning for this insistence. I can see this being a valuable technique where the communication between your application server and database server must be done over a semi-trusted network. In the case where you totally control the network is this still necessary or just overkill?  I mean today how many non ASP.NET applications communicate with the DB server over internal networks using an encrypted connection?

My second beef is that they show you how to setup an IPSec connection between the application server and database server and then say the technique is only suitable for development servers.  They never address how it should be done in production with an actual example.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:44:09 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

Ready...Set..Visual Studio.NET

I will be doing a local event for developers considering the move to Visual Studio.NET in Seattle 12/4 and Portland 12/11 with Chris Sells, Scott Hanselman, Bill Vaughn and Jim Blizzard.  The PDF file of the invite is here.  If you haven't yet made the jump to Visual Studio.NET join us for a day of orientation!

Friday, November 08, 2002 9:55:06 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]   My Hobbies

Radio Broke My RSS Feed

Well it finally happened to me.  I kept seeing posts about Radio breaking this or that and just figured it was folks who were messing with the internals.  I just got email this morning saying my plain vanilla install has a broken RSS feed.  Problem is I have no idea how to fix it...

Wednesday, October 30, 2002 10:57:33 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

ASP.NET Security

Great article on ASP.NET Security has been posted to MSDN by the folks in the PAG.  Takes a look at a number of different scenarios and gives recommendations for each.  ASP.NET Security

Thursday, October 17, 2002 4:57:08 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

Tiny Abstract OS

All I can say is wow!  I can't figure out why you might want to do this but it sure is cool.  Check out the miniature operating system Scott has created entirely in C#. Tiny Abstract OS and CPU in C#  PowerPoint deck Tiny Abstract OS and CPU in VB.NET  [Scott Hanselman's Weblog]

Wednesday, October 09, 2002 9:23:19 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

Build Practices

Great article on build practices with .NET.  It outlines the problems but doesn't really offer code to solve any of them!  Article

Also an interesting utility for automating builds that I plan to check out:  FinalBuilder.  Another interesting tool: Visual Build. A reader wrote about another great build tool Autonomy that integrates with NAnt.

At my current project we wrote our own automated build facility that does our nightly builds by:

• Parsing an XML file for projects to include
• Gets the current projects out of SourceSafe
• Updates all the AssemblyInfo.cs files with a new version number
• Walks the dependencies in the .csproj files to determine a build order
• Builds the source
• Emails the result to a build manager
• Starts smoke test if the build was successfull. 

This whole process is very specialized for our environment but I think it is stuff that any development team should be doing.  The question is why hasn't Microsoft filled this gap with tools for teams to do this type of thing?  For that matter why do we still have the crappy Source Safe shipping as part of VS.NET?  It is an embarrassment but until Microsoft drops it from the package it is going to be what most teams are forced to use since it is "free". 

I know a ton of you will write me and say, "Why not use CVS?".  Great question.  I consider myself fairly technical.  I tried to setup CVSNT and spent three days searching the web, etc just trying to get the service up!  This doesn't include getting a front end application working or trying to understand how to use it!  We need something with the usability of Source Safe in both daily use and setup that has a much more robust store mechanism and uses TCPIP for communication with the central server in an efficient fashion. 

Friday, September 20, 2002 5:55:47 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

Sample Installer Action To Install .NET Policies

I have been doing a lot of smart client development over the last 18 months.  When I mention this to folks they invariably ask me how I am distributing policies to our users.  Here is a sample installer action that shows how to create Code Groups and Persmission Sets as well as how to remove them.  Have fun!  Sample

Thursday, September 19, 2002 12:33:39 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]  

Vermont .NET Users Group

I will be speaking at the Vermont .NET Users Group on 10/7/2002 about Windows Forms vs. Web Forms: Why choose?

Been awhile since I even went to a user group let along spoke at one.  INETA has gathered me back into the fold as it were and has me hitting this group.  I am really looking forward to it.  Hanging out and talking with folks excited about .NET has got to be a blast I figure.

Wednesday, September 04, 2002 9:20:28 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]