Wednesday 24 March 2010

Setting a TreeView node in focus

Lately I have been working on a couple of projects and one of them involved a fairly long ASP.NET TreeView control. The requirement was to have it so that when a user clicked on a node, the TreeView would have that selected node in focus after the postback. This proved to be a little troublesome as there is a built in method called HideSelection in the Windows Forms version however that property does not exist in the ASP.NET version of the control.
So while browsing the web, I noticed a couple of people were having the same issue with this control. I managed to hack together some JavaScript using some of the existing script provided by the .NET framework. The following code sets the currently selected TreeViewNode into focus.
function SetSelectedTreeNodeVisible(controlID) {
var theForm = document.forms['aspnetForm'];
if (!theForm) {
theForm = document.aspnetForm;}
var selectedID = theForm.elements[controlID];
if (selectedID != null) {
var selectedNode = document.getElementById(selectedID.value);
if (selectedNode != null) { selectedNode.scrollIntoView(true); }
}
}

To use this code in your page, just call the function like so
SetSelectedTreeNodeVisible('<%= TreeViewName.ClientID %>_SelectedNode');

Replace TreeViewName with the name of your TreeView control. This code should be called at the end of the page so that the treeView has had time to load.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

MCTS Web Applications .NET 4– 70-515 – Objectives List Part 6

This is the sixth post (first, second, third, fourth, fifth) in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-515 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here) and Web Applications .NET 2.0 exam 70-528 (here)

Please note that information and exam is currently in beta and subject to change. This exam guide is for use at your own discretion and the author accepts NO liability in relation to incorrect or missing information. Also note that using this guide to study does not imply you will pass the exam

Developing a Web Application by Using ASP.NET MVC 2 (13%)

There are no books available for this exam at this time due to the fact that the exam is in beta until 30-April-2010. 8 weeks after this date is the expected go live date for this exam.

MCTS Web Applications .NET 4– 70-515 – Objectives List Part 5

This is the fifth post (first, second, third, fourth) in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-515 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here) and Web Applications .NET 2.0 exam 70-528 (here)

Please note that information and exam is currently in beta and subject to change. This exam guide is for use at your own discretion and the author accepts NO liability in relation to incorrect or missing information. Also note that using this guide to study does not imply you will pass the exam

Displaying and Manipulating Data (19%)

There are no books available for this exam at this time due to the fact that the exam is in beta until 30-April-2010. 8 weeks after this date is the expected go live date for this exam.

Monday 22 March 2010

MCTS Web Applications .NET 4– 70-515 – Objectives List Part 4

This is the fourth post (first, second, third) in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-515 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here) and Web Applications .NET 2.0 exam 70-528 (here)

Please note that information and exam is currently in beta and subject to change. This exam guide is for use at your own discretion and the author accepts NO liability in relation to incorrect or missing information. Also note that using this guide to study does not imply you will pass the exam

Configuring and Extending a Web Application (15%)

There are no books available for this exam at this time due to the fact that the exam is in beta until 30-April-2010. 8 weeks after this date is the expected go live date for this exam.

MCTS Web Applications .NET 4– 70-515 – Objectives List Part 3

This is the third post (first, second) in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-515 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here) and Web Applications .NET 2.0 exam 70-528 (here)

Please note that information and exam is currently in beta and subject to change. This exam guide is for use at your own discretion and the author accepts NO liability in relation to incorrect or missing information. Also note that using this guide to study does not imply you will pass the exam

Implementing Client-Side Scripting and AJAX (16%)

There are no books available for this exam at this time due to the fact that the exam is in beta until 30-April-2010. 8 weeks after this date is the expected go live date for this exam.

MCTS Web Applications .NET 4– 70-515 – Objectives List Part 2

This is the second post (first) in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-515 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here) and Web Applications .NET 2.0 exam 70-528 (here)

Please note that information and exam is currently in beta and subject to change. This exam guide is for use at your own discretion and the author accepts NO liability in relation to incorrect or missing information. Also note that using this guide to study does not imply you will pass the exam

Developing and Using Web Forms Controls (18%)

There are no books available for this exam at this time due to the fact that the exam is in beta until 30-April-2010. 8 weeks after this date is the expected go live date for this exam.

Sunday 21 March 2010

MCTS Web Applications .NET 4– 70-515 – Objectives List Part 1

This is the first post in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-515 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here) and Web Applications .NET 2.0 exam 70-528 (here)

Please note that information and exam is currently in beta and subject to change. This guide is for use at your own discretion and the author accepts NO liability in relation to incorrect or missing information. Also note that using this guide to study does not imply you will pass the exam

Developing Web Forms Pages (19%)

There are no books available for this exam at this time due to the fact that the exam is in beta until 30-April-2010. 8 weeks after this date is the expected go live date for this exam.

Improving your SSD performance in Windows 7

intel-x25-m-ssd-series Recently I bought an SSD drive and I am very impressed still with its performance. Last week I installed a new 4GB stick into the laptop bring the total amount of RAM in the machine to 8GB. It all installed well and Windows happily told me I had 8GB of usable memory. But there was a considerable decrease in perceived performance.

The issue it seemed was the new pagefile that Windows was using. Because of the amount of RAM, the pagefile was now 8GB. Windows writes to the pagefile every so often but it does so using random rather than sequential writes. And due to the way an SSD handles deletions in the file system this was starting to slow the system down.

So a quick browse of the web to see what could be done. The main suggestion was that if you are using 4GB or more of RAM you should probably turn off the pagefile because the OS can probably handle the whole thing in memory. There were additional tweaks too.

I turned off my pagefile and the performance seems to be back up again. I also downloaded the Intel SSD Toolbox which has some tools for management of your SSD and for performing maintenance on the disk.

I also download and used SSD Tweak which contains a number of tools and tweaks to enhance the performance of your disk. Its very easy to use and disables a number of now unnecessary Windows services.

The above worked for me but your mileage may vary.

Saturday 20 March 2010

Fixing the Visual Studio 2010 RC designer bug

VisualStudio2010 If like me you have installed the Visual Studio 2010 RC, you may have discovered an interesting but quite irritating bug relating to the generation of designer files.

Designer files are those very handy little files that allow IntelliSense to work with your ASP.NET applications. For most people this manifested itself when trying to use the AJAX Control ToolKit TabContainer control and the CreateUserWizard control. Also if you tried to upgrade your existing Visual Studio 2008 project to Visual Studio 2010.

Microsoft have released a patch for this which you can download from here. Scott Gu’s blog post has more on the subject including details of other patches released for the RC.

Additional information on the bug can be found on the Visual Web Developer Team blog

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Codes for .NET 4 Beta Exams

Gerry O’Brien has posted the codes for the .NET 4 exams.

But you can get them here anyways

Exam Number Beta Code
71-511 511BC
71-515 515AA
71-513 513CD
71-516 516B1
71-518 518PE
71-519 519ZS

To register in North America, please call: Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)

Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp

UPDATE: Added 70-515 Exam / Study guide

Friday 12 March 2010

New Technology User Group in Norway – MTUG.NO

The Microsoft Technology User Group (MTUG) is now starting to get going in Norway. So for those of you who are into the Infrastructure and Operations side of the house, this is for you. The best thing is that is free! Check it out on MTUG.no

Currently active in Oslo and Trondheim, Stavanger and Haugesund are due to come on stream soon. If you fancy setting up one in your area, please contact Anders Borchsenius (twitter) to get more information.

The first meeting will be Tuesday 16th of March with a kickoff from Nick Voicu who will be doing a talk on Tips and Tricks for the best PKI Deployment. Nick is Senior Developer with the Windows Security and Identity team in Microsoft.

The Agenda for the night :

1800 - 1805 : Velkommen

1805 - 1820 : Introduksjon til MTUG

1830 - 2030 : Tips and tricks for making the best PKI deployment

An overview on the existing optimizations in Windows PKI Client that will help design and deploy a better PKI in your organization.

2030 - 2100 : Q&A samt sosial mingling utover kvelden

You can register for the event here.

For those developers among you there is also the Norwegian .NET User Groups which are running around the country. Again also free!

Thursday 11 March 2010

.NET 4 Beta Exams

image_3 The .NET 4.0 exams will open in beta on the 15th of March 2010 at 12AM Eastern Standard Time and the beta runs from April 5, 2010 – April 30, 2010. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

Microsoft Learning will post a notice on the Born to Learn blog when the beta slots are filled.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centres worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centres will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.
Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

The following exams are available

  • Exam 71-511: TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Exam 71-515: TS: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Exam 70-513: TS: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Exam 70-516: TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Exam 70-518: Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Exam 70-519: Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

The beta invite codes will have been sent to eligible persons by Microsoft through the MSL Subject Matter Experts page on the Microsoft Connect site. If you are already registered with that site you should do so.

You can find more information about the beta exam process here

UPDATE: Added 70-515 Exam / Study guide

Monday 1 March 2010

MCTS .NET 2.0 Web-based Client Development – 70-528 – Objectives List Part 4

This is the fourth post (first, second, third) in another collection of posts that have links to the different objectives covered in the 70-528 exam. There is also a series on ASP.NET 3.5 exam 70-562 (here)

Tracing, configuring, and deploying applications

You can also find some information on preparing for your exams here and here, in the actual exam for 70-528. Also errata for the MS Press training kit