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My blog has been moved to geekswithblogs.

http://www.flanders.co.nz/blog

.NET 2.0 Rulezzzzz

I discovered the beta 2 of visual studio 2005

I knew already it was there for some time but never wanted to do the effort of checking it out. Also I knew I was going to move from belgium to New Zealand so it didn't actually seem the best timing to start. After getting settled in NZ, I got myself the demo of the new IDE VS2K5 and at first sight it looks much prettier than the VS 2K3. ;-)

When I got over the prettyness I started messing around and quickly came to the constatation it was maybe better to at least get a book to get me started. Good after some investigating I came to the conclusion that the book Introducing asp.NET 2.0 from Dino Esposito would be a good place to start. I have to warn the people who have the misconception that this book can provide them with everything you need to know. I had this misconception.. but the book simply shows what the new controls are and briefly touches the most simple way on how to use them.

Codeless is nice but still a dream. What is true is that you don't need to write the incredibly boring boilerplate code to update your database but just a few stored procedures and the new dataset does the rest. Another cool feature is not having to write the boring datagrid update,cancel, edit and delete code anymore which is always virtually the same.

The book was finished in 4 days and I got my first somewhat complex page done in about 1-2 days. I hope to have my first app which will be an intranet app for registering my projects and filling out timesheets will be done in about 5 days. But starting a new technology is always slower than one you are already familiar with (duh). So I am very excited for the moment that I will be knowing it as well as the older brother .NET 1.1

Back to the app developping...

ORFilter Version 5

The dude martijnjongen did a great job creating his orfilter, the biggest disadvantage is that it does not learn from itself.. so I decided to buy the GFI mailessentials. Which are not too expensive but at least I don't have to spend a few days inputting data and keywords for blocking spam.

I am really content with the gfi stuff.

Freeproxy Although cool not what I need

Freeproxy

The basic idea is cool. But I don't want my users to have to enter a second password. I just want to blacklist lets say 5000 sites most of them porn and auction sites. More importantly I don't want to be messing around with inputting every site manually.
So freeproxy although a cool plan because you can set your user authentication to ntlm. Did not do it's job properly. if started as a service you could completely forget it would block sites in the blacklist. If started from console, it would block for a while. Since I am a busy man I don't have time, and most certainly don't feel like restarting the console every 5 minutes.

So the freeproxy got fired. I guess I will have to rely on good ol'microsoft ISA server and read through the manuals to configure it properly so my vpn won't be crashing everytime. Since I have SBS 2k3 Premium at my disposal I also have the ISA 2k4. This should be a whole step forward from what I gatter reading on the web.

Sorry people from freeproxy... you don't have my vote.

FreeProxy download and review - proxy server from SnapFiles

An alternative to ISA server and free...
I have already a firewall and ISA server is pretty difficult and confusing at the start ... This is easy and quickly installed.. just what I need as a time pressed programmer/administrator

FreeProxy download and review - proxy server from SnapFiles

martijnjongen.com > ORFilter > Version 5

This is a spamfilter for exchange 2003 presumably written in .NET, lightweight runs as a service.

Most importantly it is free. The programmer claims it catches 95% of all spam. I hope spamhause rbl will block the other 4,99% ;-)

martijnjongen.com > ORFilter > Version 5

Google Desktop Search Tips

This page is really cool about GDS in a networked environment

Google Desktop Search Tips

Wimdows.net - Posting an ASP.NET web form to another ASP.NET page: who needs it?!

Wimdows.net - Posting an ASP.NET web form to another ASP.NET page: who needs it?!

Getting javascript var to serverside vars .NET (The Control)

It seems that I need 2 Handlers because if I navigate to the same page then it doesn't catch my querystrings.

This control has design-time support but if you want to use the standard values it is just drag and drop :)



using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace Koolkraft.Library.Controls
{

[DefaultProperty("Text"), ToolboxData("<{0}:DetailStats runat=server>"),]
public class DetailStats : Control,INamingContainer
{
private string m_strSetUrl;
private string m_strGetUrl;

protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{
m_strSetUrl = "SetStats.axd";
m_strGetUrl = "GetStats.axd";
base.OnInit (e);
}

[Bindable(false),
Category("Behavior"),
DefaultValue(false)]
public override bool EnableViewState
{
get
{
return false;
}
set
{
base.EnableViewState = false;
}
}


protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)
{
if(HttpContext.Current.Session["Fla"] == null)
writer.Write(buildIframe());
}

private string buildIframe()
{
if(m_strGetUrl == null)
throw new Exception("The GetUrl property of the DetailStats needs to be set");
if(m_strSetUrl == null)
throw new Exception("The SetUrl property of the DetailStats needs to be set");
HttpContext _context = HttpContext.Current;

System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
//Replace the i_frame by iframe and set style="VISIBILITY: hidden"
sb.Append("return sb.ToString();
}

[Bindable(true),
Category("Configuration"),
DefaultValue("GetStats.axd")]
public string GetUrl
{
get
{
return m_strGetUrl;
}
set
{
m_strGetUrl = value;
}
}

[Bindable(true),
Category("Configuration"),
DefaultValue("SetStats.axd")]
public string SetUrl
{
get
{
return m_strSetUrl;
}
set
{
m_strSetUrl = value;
}
}

}
}