Peter Mourfield's Blog

How can I find ChildControls on ASP.NET Pages within a MasterPage?

2009-11-01T00:31:00.001-04:00

I know this isn't really exciting or cutting edge, but hopefully you'll find it useful. Occasionally I need to use the FindControl method on an ASP.NET WebForms page to locate a particular control. Recently I needed to do the same on a web site was using MasterPages which causes the Page.FindControl to not find thte controls on the page as you would expect. This is because the Page object is now contained in a MasterPage, so you have to drill down the control heirarchy. In this case I was able to solve my problem by writing an extension method to the Control class that recursively searches for the specified control. Here's what the method ended up looking like:

public static class MyExtensionMethods
{
    public static Control FindControlRecursive(this Control root, string id)
    {
        if (0 == id.CompareTo(root.ID))
        {
            return root;
        }

        foreach (Control childControl in root.Controls)
        {
            Control foundControl = FindControlRecursive(childControl, id);
            if (null != foundControl)
            {
                return foundControl;
            }
        }

        return null;
    }
}

Now I can just call Page.FindControlRecursive("txtSomeControl"); in either the MasterPage or Non-MasterPage scenarios and expect the method to behave the same in both scenarios.

How does SQL Server store indexes?

2009-09-17T15:44:00.000-04:00

Recently I felt pretty strongly that I needed to have a better understanding of how SQL Server worked. So I studied for (and passed) the Microsoft Exam 70-432; SQL Server 2008 Implementation and Maintenance. As a result of learning more about SQL Server, I have decided to write a series of articles that might help other developers understand some of the basic concepts of SQL Server. These articles are by no means meant to be comprehensive, but more of a brief look into some facet of SQL Server. Below is my first installment in this series, 'How does SQL Server store indexes.'

Microsoft’s SQL Server uses a B-tree data structure to organize indexes. This structure is hierarchical, with root node at the top of the hierarchy, leaf nodes (also called data pages) at the bottom, and intermediate nodes in the middle. The main idea behind the B-tree structure is that it is always balanced. There are always the same numbers of nodes on both the right and left hand sides of the tree. This allows the data structure to search quickly for data with a minimal number of disk reads.

How the row data is store in each page depends on what type (clustered or non-clustered) index is created. A clustered index (think phone book – all the data is present with the index entry) stores the entire row of data associated with the key value at the leaf level of the index. A table can only have one clustered index and clustered indexes are stored in either ascending or descending sort order. Whereas non-clustered indexes (think index in the back of a book – the index tells you where to go look for the data) only contain the indexed columns and row locators to the actual row data and are unsorted.

Index leaf nodes are referred to as data pages in SQL Server and each page can store up to 8kb of data. Rows on a page are stored in either ascending or descending sort order. As data is inserted it is placed in its appropriate sorted location in the tree structure. If data is consistently inserted into the middle of a page, eventually all of the rows on the index page will no longer fit on the single page and a page split occurs. When a page split occurs 2 new pages are created and the data is split between the newly created pages.

Remember, an index is only useful if it helps find data quickly in a table regardless of the amount of data in the table. Indexes aren’t free; they do come with a cost. Primarily, each index you create, while speeding up the selecting of data, has a negative affect on the the inserting, updating, or deleting of data because the database must update the indexes each time data changes.

Hopefully you've found something new in this article or maybe it's inspired you to go research SQL Server indexes, there is definitely a lot more to indexes than what I've presented here.

Upcoming Train the Trainer Class in Columbia, SC on Sept. 24-25

2009-08-27T13:06:00.001-04:00

MicroStaff IT in Columbia, SC is hosting a Train the Trainer class in Columbia, SC on September 24-25, 2009. This 2-day highly interactive class prepares students for Certification as a CTT+ or MCT Instructor.

Don't miss this great opportunity to improve your training skills as well as have the opportunity to earn either the CompTIA CTT+ or Microsoft's MCT certifications, or both!

You can get details on the web by emailing Dianne Caro or by calling 803-799-7321.

I'm speaking this weekend at the Jacksonville, FL Code Camp

2009-08-24T11:01:00.003-04:00

I'm taking my 'ASP.NET MVC Soup-to-Nuts' presentation on the road again. This time to the Jacksonville, FL Code Camp. I hope to see you there. More information about the code camp is available at http://www.jaxcodecamp.com/.

TaxSlayer.com sponsors NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car driven by David Gilliland

2009-08-05T13:06:00.001-04:00

I'm very excited to announce that TaxSlayer.com as signed to sponsor a NASCAR Sprint Cup car. The #71 car will be driven by Andy Lally this weekend at Watkins Glen. Our racing website is available here.

I love the way the car has turned out. Here's a rendering of what it will look like:

What's the difference between Linq2Sql and ADO.Net Entity Framework

2009-07-04T12:29:00.001-04:00

Recently, I've been looking into using ADO.Net Entity Framework with my ASP.NET MVC talks. Primarily I wanted to understand how the Entity Framework differed from Linq2Sql so I could see which technology was a better fit for my project. Here's what I've been able to come up with:

Linq2Sql is SQL-Server specific and the generated object model bears a strong resemblance to the underlying tables. In other words, there is a 1-to-1 mapping of database tables, stored procedures, etc available in Microsoft SQL Server.

Entity Framework is database-vendor independent (although you need providers) that allows the object and relational models to be quite different. Because of this you can mix a variety of database objects to create an aggregated and combined data model.

For me, it seems that Linq2Sql is the choice for quick data access to well designed SQL Server databases where Entity Framework is the choice when a variety of data sources and data models must be combined into a single model.

I'm speaking at the Columbia Enterprise Developers Guild on 7/8/2009 in Columbia,SC

2009-07-04T12:06:00.001-04:00

I’ll be speaking about ASP.NET MVC at the Columbia Enterprise Developers Guild in Columbia, SC on July 8th 2009. I’ll be doing my ASP.NET MVC Soup-to-Nuts talk. This presentation has few slides and focuses on code. We’ll walk through building an application using ASP.NET MVC with the goal of helping you understand why you might want to use ASP.NET MVC in your next application. I hope to see you there! More information about the Columbia Enterprise Developes Guild is available on their web site http://www.columbiadevelopers.org/ .

Mark your calendars, Augusta Code Camp is November 7, 2009

2009-06-23T10:17:00.002-04:00

We’re happy to announce the first annual Augusta Code Camp to be held November 7, 2009 at Augusta State University. Very special thanks to Dr. Todd Shultz from Augusta State University for chairing the Augusta Code Camp committee and working hard to get the web site up and running. The web address for Augusta Code Camp is http://augustacodecamp.org/default.aspx .
Attendees, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers, please register here http://augustacodecamp.org/Registration.aspx . More information will be published in the weeks to come!

Attendees have a chance to win Visual Studio Team Suite MSDN Subscription!

Why does ASP.NET MVC have to be a 'web application'? REDUX

2009-06-03T22:56:00.013-04:00

Recently I wrote a post asking the question ‘Why does ASP.NET MVC have to be a web application?’ so here’s

Step 1: Using Visual Studio 2008, Select File->New->Project

Step 2: Select the ‘ASP.NET MVC Web Application’ project template

Step 3: Select ‘No, do not create a unit test project’ when prompted to create a unit test project

Step 4: Close the newly created ASP.NET MVC Web Application' by selecting File->Close Solution

Step 5: Select File->New->Project and under ‘Other Project Types\Visual Studio Solutions’, select Blank Solution and create an empty solution

Step 6: Right-click on the newly created solution and select ‘Add->Existing Web Site’

Step 7: Use the File System option to navigate to the location of the previously created ASP.NET MVC Web Application

Step 8: Delete the *.csproj* files and the ‘bin’ and ‘obj’ directories.

Step 9: Right-click on the web site and select ‘Add ASP.NET Folder->App_Code’, then drag-and-drop the Controllers folder into the App_Code directory

Step 10: Double-click on the Default.aspx file and change the CodeBehind attribute to CodeFile

Step 11: Open the Global.asax.cs file and copy the RegiterRoutes method.

Step 12: Delete the Global.asax and Global.asax.cs file. Create a new ‘Global Application Class'.’ Paste the RegisterRoutes method into the Global.asax file and add the call to the register routes method to the Application_Start method.

<%@ Application Language="C#">
	<script runat="server">
		public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
		{    
			routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
			routes.MapRoute(
			        "Default",
			        "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
			        new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }
		    );
		}

		void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
		{    
			// Code that runs on application startup    
			RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
		}

		void Application_End(object sender, EventArgs e)
		{    
			//  Code that runs on application shutdown
		}

		void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
		{    
			// Code that runs when an unhandled error occurs
		}

		void Session_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
		{    
			// Code that runs when a new session is started
		}

		void Session_End(object sender, EventArgs e)
		{    
			// Code that runs when a session ends.    
			// Note: The Session_End event is raised only when the sessionstate mode    
			// is set to InProc in the Web.config file. If session mode is set to StateServer    
			// or SQLServer, the event is not raised.
		}
	</script>

At this point you should be ready to go. Remember, that the reason Microsoft decided to make ASP.NET MVC projects web applications by default is to allow for unit testing more easily. Good Luck!

I'm Speaking at CodeStock on 6/27/2009 in Knoxville, TN

2009-05-18T18:41:00.002-04:00

I was happy to learn yesterday that my ‘ASP.NET MVC - Soup to Nuts’ session has been voted IN at CodeStock. I was surprised to learn that my session was one of the top 5 sessions selected. Thanks for all of your support!

Why does ASP.NET MVC have to be a 'web application'?

2009-05-04T20:16:00.004-04:00

Recently I’ve been doing some presentations at user groups about ASP.NET MVC . A couple of times the question has been asked “Why does ASP.NET MVC have to be a ‘web application’?” Not having a really good understanding of why, I decided to ask the StackOverflow and ASP.NET Forums communities. I couple of people had some great theories, but I still had no definitive answer as to why. So, I decided to put the question to Scott Guthrie, I thought if anyone will know this he will. And Scott’s answer, well, it doesn’t have to be a web application. Here’s his response:

Hi Peter,

With ASP.NET MVC projects the view files (.aspx, .ascx, .master) still compile separately (they are copied as source onto the server and dynamically compiled at runtime like a web-site project). The classes within the project (controllers, models, helpers, etc) do compile into a single project-level assembly. ASP.NET MVC itself doesn’t require the application project to be a web application project (it works with web-site projects too), but we decided to have it go with web application projects by default to to enable better unit testing. By having them be a referenceable assembly a unit test project can reference the application and easily author unit tests against it. Note that Visual Web Developer Express SP1 now supports web application projects – so these are available to all users (and not just the paid products).

Thanks, Scott

Thank you Scott for clearing that up!

Development tools that I use

2009-04-27T02:18:00.001-04:00

Here’s a list of some great development tools that I use.

Microsoft Visual Studio (of course)

RedGate SQL Toolbelt

ReSharper

Beyond Compare

Notepad2

Tortoise SVN and Visual SVN

Snagit

WS_FTP Professional

XML Notepad

So what’s this ASP.NET MVC thing all about?

2009-04-27T02:01:00.001-04:00

I’ve been hearing a lot of questions (both personally and from some online forums like Stack Overflow and ASP.NET Forums) from people trying to understand what ASP.NET MVC is and what are it’s benefits. So here’s my attempt to consolidate answers to many of the questions that I’ve heard.

First, MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. It’s a design pattern that’s been around for quite some time. Martin Fowler has a great article about ‘generic’ MVC here http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/uiArchs.html. ASP.NET MVC is a recent addition to the ASP.NET framework that provides for an out of the box implementation for ASP.NET web applications of the MVC pattern.

Using ASP.NET MVC, the web application is organized differently than with traditional ASP.NET Web Forms. There is a clear separation of concerns between the data, application logic, and view layers which mean each layer is more loosely coupled from each other. Performance is increased due to less code bloat. There is no view state in ASP.NET MVC and post backs are a thing of the past. Because the view is not at tightly coupled to the application code, generally, this provides for code that more easily testable, better web standards compliance and enhanced SEO support.

Some resources that can help you get started with ASP.NET MVC are:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc337884.aspx

Scott Hanselman’s blog: http://www.hanselman.com . Scott’s nerddinner.com site is an excellent example of using ASP.NET MVC and his talk from MIX09 is here http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T49F

Rob Conery’s blog: http://blog.wekeroad.com/ Rob also has a great video series where he walks though the creation of the ASP.NET MVC Storefront Starter kit here http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc-videos/#MVCStorefrontStarterKit

I'm Speaking at Refresh Augusta on 5/20/2009 in Augusta, GA

2009-04-27T00:16:00.001-04:00

I’ll be coming to the Refresh Augusta meeting on May 20, 2009 to talk about jQuery. I’ll be demonstrating some of the ‘Advanced’ features of jQuery and will answer questions about anything jQuery.

I'm Speaking at Enterprise Developers Guild on 4/29/2009 in Charlotte, NC

2009-04-27T00:03:00.001-04:00

I’ll be speaking about ASP.NET MVC at the Enterprise Developers Guild in Charlotte, NC on April 29th 2009. I’ll be doing my ASP.NET MVCSoup-to-Nuts talk. This presentation is low on slides and high on code. We’ll walk through building an application using ASP.NET MVC with the goal of helping you understand why you might want to use ASP.NET MVC in your next application. You can get more information about this meeting at http://www.developersguild.org/Default.aspx?tabid=32&Event=131 .

The Augusta Developers Guild presents Sean Briscoe

2009-04-14T17:01:00.001-04:00

Sean Briscoe will be presenting Getting started with SharePoint 2007 Development at the April 2009 Augusta Developers Guild Meeting. For more information is available at http://www.augustadevelopers.org/Events/April2009/tabid/77/Default.aspx.

I may be speaking at CodeStock

2009-04-05T21:05:00.001-04:00

I’ve submitted 2 sessions for CodeStock in Knoxville, TN. Registered attendee’s vote on which sessions they want to see. So go on over to CodeStock.org and register to attend (it’s only $25 for two days), then vote on the content that you want to see. Voting ends May 15th, so register at http://codestock.org/pages/register.aspx .

Microsoft's TechDays 24 Hour Virtual Event

2009-03-30T03:50:00.001-04:00

Microsoft is hosting a 24 hour virtual event at http://www.msfttechdays.com/public/home.aspx . Looks like there are some good sessions, so check it out.

I'm speaking at Augusta Developers Guild on 3/26/2009 in Augusta, GA

2009-03-26T01:19:00.001-04:00

I’ll be speaking about ASP.NET MVC at the Augusta Developers Guild in Augusta, GA on March 26th 2009. I’ll be doing my ASP.NET MVC Soup-to-Nuts talk. This presentation is low on slides and high on code. We’ll walk through building an application using ASP.NET MVC with the goal of helping you understand why you might want to use ASP.NET MVC in your next application. You can get more information about this meeting at http://www.augustadevelopers.org/Events/March2009/tabid/76/Default.aspx .

I'm Speaking at Enterprise Developers Guild CodeCamp on 3/29/2009 in Charlotte, NC

2009-03-01T01:16:00.001-05:00

I'll be presenting my 'Building Mobile Applications using Visual Studio
2008 and the .NET Compact Framework 3.5' session at the Enterprise Developers Guild Code
Camp on March 28, 2009. If you're free you should come check it out.
More information is available on their site http://www.developersguild.org/Default.aspx?alias=www.developersguild.org/codecamp/2009/spring

Building Mobile Applications using Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Compact Framework 3.5

Windows Mobile development is not as difficult as it seems. Take a
comprehensive walkthrough of the Windows Mobile application development
platform, SDKs and tool enhancements for device development in this
session. We will cover what's new in Windows Mobile 6 SDK, Visual
Studio 2008, and the .NET Compact Framework 3.5.

I'm Speaking at Atlanta Guild CodeCamp on 3/14/2009 in Atlanta, GA

2009-03-01T01:12:00.001-05:00

I'll be presenting my 'Building Mobile Applications using Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Compact Framework 3.5' session at the Atlanta Code Camp on March 14, 2009. If you're free you should come check it out. More information is available on their site http://atlantacodecamp.com/ .

Updated NetTools for Windows Mobile

2009-02-14T06:36:00.001-05:00

Here's another update to the Net Tools for Windows Mobile project. This update includes some user suggested updates and (per user request) both the C++ and C# versions of the code. I'm also planning another round of updates as soon as I can get my hands on Silverlight for Windows Mobile so stay tuned. Everything's available over on the project page here.

RealTechnologyHeroes.com

2009-01-24T05:33:00.001-05:00

Go over to RealTechnologyHeroes.com and check them out.

Community-Credit.com

2009-01-24T05:27:00.001-05:00

Community-Credit.com

Have you ever thought about the possibility of being rewarded for
the blogs/articles you have written? Every month, Community-Credit.com
gives out a number of geeky gifts to the top contributers. It is a
website where one can find a huge number of articles from alot of
communities.

I'd suggest you would check it out. It is worth it!

If you consider yourself smart, and would like to earn a stupid gift, register to Community-Credit.com :-)

StupidCubicle.com

2009-01-24T05:26:00.001-05:00

StupidCubicle.com

Ever needed to spice up your cubicle at work?
Ever thought you need any computer geek stuff? StupidCubicle.com is the
right place to go. Check it out, you will not be disappointed.

Examples:

Teddy Bear USB Drive Tones of Shirts to choose from