If you have a section such as this in your ASP.NET web.config:

<authentication mode="Forms">
  <!-- 525600 mins = 1 year -->
  <forms cookieless="UseCookies" timeout="525600">
    <credentials passwordFormat="Clear">
      <user name="jdoe" password="jdoesPassword" />
      <user name="mrFancypants" password="fancyPassword" />
    </credentials>
  </forms>
</authentication>

You can access the user credentials via C# with the following code

var webConfig = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration("~");
var authSection = (AuthenticationSection)webConfig.GetSection("system.web/authentication");
var user = authSection.Forms.Credentials.Users["jdoe"];

// Check if the user exists and if the passwords match
if (user == null || user.Password != "aPasswordHere")
    throw new ApplicationException(notAuthMessage);

I hope this will save you some time!

Today I ran into a problem when running the following Linq query with an “outer join”.

from au in dcApp.aspnet_Users
join am in dcApp.aspnet_Memberships on au.UserId equals am.UserId
select new
{
   au.UserName,
   am.Email,
   am.CreateDate,
   au.ApplicantInfo.FirstName,
   au.ApplicantInfo.LastName,
   au.ApplicantInfo.CurrentStep
};

The problem is that the Current Step is a not null column in the database; so it is of type int not int? . But in this query, I’m using Linq to get the ApplicantInfo row associated with the aspnet_Users row. The ApplicantInfo row might or might not exist. When the row does not exist linq is trying to convert that null into an int type so you get the following error:

“The null value cannot be assigned to a member with type System.Int32 which is a non-nullable value type.”

What is really interesting is that it is only throwing that error with the CurrentStep column in the ApplicantInfo table, not with the FirstName or LastName cols that are also not null in the db. This probably has to do with the fact that the string type is a reference type (and the int type is a value type) and C# treats strings in unique ways.

This is the work-around I came up with:

from au in dcApp.aspnet_Users
join am in dcApp.aspnet_Memberships on au.UserId equals am.UserId
select new
{
   au.UserName,
   am.Email,
   am.CreateDate,
   au.ApplicantInfo.FirstName,
   au.ApplicantInfo.LastName,
   curStep = au.ApplicantInfo.FirstName == "" ? "" : au.ApplicantInfo.CurrentStep.ToString()
};

As you can see I’m taking advantage of the the fact that things work good with the string typed columns

I ran into a situation where I needed the System.Web.UI.WebControls.CheckBoxList to work with a System.Web.UI.WebControls.RequiredFieldValidator.

I found a clever and really easy way to fix it. I subclassed the CheckBoxList class to add the ValidationProperty that the RequiredFieldValidator is looking for.

Just declare this class:

[ValidationPropertyAttribute("ValidateableProperty")]
public class ValidateableCheckBoxList : CheckBoxList
{

    public string ValidateableProperty
    {
        get { return (this.Items.Cast<ListItem>()
            .Where(i => i.Selected).Count() > 0) ?
            "something was selected" : ""; }
    }
}

And instead of using a CheckBoxList in your code, use a ValidateableCheckBoxList.

On the aspx file you can now work with the ValidateableCheckBoxList just like you would with a plain TextBox. I’m not a JavaScript guru so I did not implement or even thought about how to implement the client side validation.

        <ans:ValidateableCheckBoxList runat="server"
            ID="testCheckBoxList">
            <asp:ListItem Text="asdf" />
            <asp:ListItem Text="asdf" />
            <asp:ListItem Text="asdf" />
        </ans:ValidateableCheckBoxList>
        <asp:RequiredFieldValidator runat="server" ID="rfvTest"
            ControlToValidate="testCheckBoxList" Text="Failed validation"  />

I like Windows 7 and was really sad it did not work with my Linksys Wireless-G PCI Adapter (WMP54G). Linksys does not have a 64 bit driver for W7 (not even for vista actually).

But on vista 64 bit, the card works automatically after running the windows updates. That is not the case for W7. I even tried the Ralink drivers, which aparently is the brand of the chip on the Linksys card. I tried installing this driver and this driver with no luck.

My problem was that the driver installed successfully but I could not enable the card. So I guess I’ll go back to Vista 64bit on my home computer. I now wonder how well this is going to work on my Lenovo laptop at work; I’ll be trying W7 on it in a couple of weeks.

When I write reports, I often times run into parent-child relationships where I only need one particular child row. And sometimes a group by simply does not cut it because max, average, sum, or some of those aggregate functions simply are not a good fit for your situation when you want some info (or the entire row) of the child that was modified last, or that has the largest amount in one column, etc.

So I use a combination the top command with an order by as seen in the query at the bottom. Note that performance can become an issue when doing this. Also if you spot a more efficient way of doing this, I would really like to know.

On this query the parents are on HSWithEvent . The HSWithEvent (high school with an event) is really just a select query inside the from clause, this is what I like to call a view on the fly because you could easily create a view for this but since you’ll only use it on this query, it is not worth it.

The children come from the CmEvent table. There are many events for each high school.

For each HSWithEvent (parent) I’m selecting all the info for 2 particular events (children), all summarized on the same row. The selection for the children is complex: one is the the event that was completed last and the other one is the closest coming pending event.

select
  HsWithEvent.AmHighSchoolId,
  HsWithEvent.SyOrganizationId,
  lstTemplate.Descrip as lastActivityTemplateName,
  lst.Subject as LastActivitySubject, lst.DueDate as LastActivityDueDate, lst.EndDate as LastActivityCompletedDate,
  comingTemplate.descrip as ComingActivityTemplateName,
  coming.subject as ComingActivitySubject, Coming.DueDate as ComingActivityDueDate, coming.EndDate as ComingActivityCompletedDate
from
– pliska: The query below filters a lot of high schools, this is important
– because the orderby top opperations used on this query
– are very expensive and I don’t want to run them on all high schools
( — get all the SyOrganizationId’s that have a CmEvent
select distinct AmHighSchool.AmHighSchoolId, AmHighSchool.SyOrganizationId
from CmEvent
– the inner join below filters out the events with no high school organization
inner join AmHighSchool on CmEvent.SyOrganizationID = AmHighSchool.SyOrganizationID) as HSWithEvent
left outer join CmEvent lst on lst.CmEventId = (
   — foreach AmHighSchool that has a CmEvent, get the CmEventId that was completed last
   select top(1) e.CmEventId
   from CmEvent e
   where e.SyOrganizationId = HsWithEvent.SyOrganizationId — 36042 — hscode 450006 —
   order by e.EndDate desc, e.CmEventId desc)
left outer join CmTemplate lstTemplate on lst.CmTemplateId = lstTemplate.CmTemplateId
left outer join CmEvent coming on coming.CmEventId = (
   — foreach AmHighSchool that has a CmEvent, get the CmEventId of the coming Pending CmEvent
   select top(1) e.CmEventId
   from CmEvent e
   where e.SyOrganizationId = HsWithEvent.SyOrganizationId
   and e.DueDate >= cast(floor(cast(getdate() as float)) as datetime)
   and e.CmEventStatusId = 1 — Pending
   order by e.DueDate desc, e.CmEventId desc)
left outer join CmTemplate comingTemplate on coming.CmTemplateId = comingTemplate.CmTemplateId

Just for Notebook PCs, for now…

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/07/google_announce.html

It will be perfect for people that use their computer to browse the internet and check email. I know I could use something like this on at least one of my computers at home.

It is planned to come out next year.

I have an ASP.NET C# web service (*.asmx) that I want to secure using Basic Authentication. This would also apply to a regular ASP.NET web page (*.aspx).

I could have told IIS that if someone is hitting the specific web service file (*.asmx), they need to provide Basic Authentication. But I did not want to do that because I wanted the credentials (username and password) to be stored in my application’s web.config .

So I added the following code in the web service’s constructor:

string configUsername = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["username"];
string configPassword = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["password"];
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(configUsername))
{
    //---- Check Basic Authentication credentials
    string requestUsername;
    string requestPassword;
    try
    {
        // The header is in the following format
        // "Basic 64BitEncodedUsernameAndPasswordString"
        string userAndPassEncoded =
            this.Context.Request.Headers["Authorization"].Substring(6);
        // userAndPasswordDecoded is in the following
        // format "theusername:thepassword"
        string userAndPassDecoded = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding().GetString(
            Convert.FromBase64String(
                this.Context.Request.Headers["Authorization"].Substring(6)));
        string[] userAndPasswordArray = userAndPassDecoded.Split(':');
        requestUsername = userAndPasswordArray[0];
        requestPassword = userAndPasswordArray[1];
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw new ApplicationException(
            "Unable to get the Basic Authentication credentials from the request"
            , ex);
    }

    if (configUsername != requestUsername || configPassword != requestPassword)
        throw new ApplicationException(
            "You are not authorized to access this web service");
}

Even though the code is not long or complex, I wonder if .NET has a class to deal with Basic Authentication (let me know if you know a better way) so I don’t need to access the headers, substring, and decode. I looked around and did not find anything so I’m leaving it as is.

Important note: Remember that Basic Authentication transmits the credentials in clear text. So you probably want to use Basic Authentication over SSL (https).

Neumont made the LA Times today with the article: At ‘Geek Heaven,’ students are skilled in tech, if not talk . It’s a fun read.

I think the writer got the essence of the average Neumont student. Well, almost. The average Neumont student does not stink (although we do have a fare share of stinkers). And even though we have a lot of geeks, we have a lot of normal students as well.

I guess the author did not talk to instructors or laptop support (the people that sometimes need to touch student’s keyboards) because he didn’t write about dandruffed, crumby keyboards.

I started categorizing my blog posts to make subscription more flexible. I mostly did this so my family can check out the posts about my life (Personal category) and not get posts about code (Computer Science category).

Here are feeds you can subscribe to:

All categories – rss - email

   Personal – rss – email

   Computer Science – rss – email

Class description:

/// This class handles writing to a log file and rolling it based on
/// the file size. Currently you only need to send one parameter to the
/// constructor: the logFullFilePath
///
/// From the logFullFilePath, this class will determine the folder location where
/// to place all logs and the file names for the log files. Log files will be
/// rolled when the file hits 5MB; this will be customizable in the future via
/// constructor parameters or public properties.
///
/// For a logFullFilePath like this one: C:\dir1\dir2\log-file-name.log
///
/// All of the log files will be located in C:\dir1\dir2 , the most recent
/// log file will always be log-file-name.log and once log-file-name.log hits 5MB,
/// it will be renamed log-file-name-01.log and a new log-file-name.log file will
/// be created. Then when log-file-name.log hits 5MB again, log-file-name-01.log
/// will become log-file-name-02.log, log-file-name.log will become log-file-name-01.log
/// and a new log-file-name.log file will be created. And so on…
///
/// Currently you will have 15 log-file-name-NN.log files; but this will be
/// customizeable in the future via constructor parameters or public properties.

So basically you just have to do the following, and this class takes care of rolling the logs for you:

LogRoller roller = new LogRoller("C:\dir1\dir2\log-file-name.log");
while (true)
{
    roller.LogMessage("test message");
    roller.LogException(new ApplicationException("this is an exception");
}

You can find the class here LogRoller.cs