The Dustward

Lua Code Completion for Notepad++

2009-06-21T10:45:00.003-04:00

I am 90% finished with a code completion XML file for the Lua 5.1 programming language. The XML is complete with functions and parameters, but I am still working on return types. I will release a beta version soon with installation instructions.

Canceling MySpace Account

2009-05-06T08:09:00.002-04:00

I never use MySpace and never real had an attraction to the site. Tom, you made your money, but now it's time to clear the way for Facebook and Twitter. I enjoyed the three levels of confirmation I had to go through to cancel. It's interesting that even after multiple confirmations I still have check my email to finish the process. This is the Columbo of account cancellations.

iPhone post

2008-07-14T19:45:00.002-04:00

I don't know everybody does this, but if just seems appropriate when you're 3Gizzin.

CSS Horizontal Menu with Submenu

2008-05-12T10:53:00.010-04:00

I was playing with some CSS code over the weekend. My goal was to make a cross-browser compatible horizontally tabbed menu using HTML's unordered list tag. This concept has been beaten into the ground pretty well on the web, but none of the solutions I found fit my needs.

CSS menu file: menu.css
Sample HTML: cssExample.html

The code here has been successfully testing in Internet Explorer 6.0 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0. Notice I did not need to use CSS conditionals for IE compatibility. I though that was a nice touch :)

CSS Code:

#menu ul {
border-bottom: solid 1px #336699;
font: normal normal bold 14px verdana;
margin: 0;
margin-top: .1em;
padding: 4px 0; /* This typically corresponds to the padding-top value in '#menu li a' */
text-align: left;
}
#menu li {
list-style: none;
display: inline;
margin: 0;
}
#menu li a {
background: #EFEFEF;
border: solid 1px #336699;
border-bottom: none;
color: #336699;
margin-right: 0em;
padding: 4px 6px;
text-decoration: none;
}
#menu li a:hover {
background: #FFF;
}
#menu li a.last {
border-right: solid 1px #336699;
}
#menu li a.selected {
background: #FFF;
border-bottom: solid 1px #FFF;
}
#submenu ul {
height: 1em;
list-style: none;
padding: 3px 0;
margin: 0;
border-bottom: solid 1px #336699;
}
#submenu li {
display: inline;
}
#submenu li a {
float: left;
padding: 3px 7px;
margin: 0;
font: normal normal bold 10px verdana;
border-right: solid 1px #EEE;
color: #336699;
text-decoration: none;
}
#submenu li a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
#submenu li a.last {
border-right: none;
}

HTML Code:

<div id="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Client</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Download</a></li>
<li><a href="#" class="selected">Support</a></li>
<li><a href="#" class="last">Forum</a></li> </ul>
</div>
<div id="submenu">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Live Chat</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Phone</a></li>
<li><a href="#" class="last">Email</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Consider this the base code. You can easily manipulate the functionality with PHP, C#, and JavaScript.

cssExample.html

Web-based Chat, AMPchat 2.0!

2008-02-08T07:42:00.001-05:00

I created a web-based chat utilizing Web 2.0 technologies. It's the latest incarnation of the highly successful AMPchat platform which started over 7 years ago with it's initial release, AMPchat 1.0. Initially we used lots of Javascript and Javascript Remote Scripting to create a refresh-less web-based chat. Using .NET 2.0 technologies we were able to create a more robust, responsive, and reliable application. What's more, there is a .NET 3.5 version utilizing features like Linq and SQL Server 2005. Unfortunately, .NET 3.5 is still a bit too "green" for us to trust its security, hence the 2.0 version... for now ;)

If you would like to try AMPchat 2.0 while in BETA for free. Please leave a comment and we'll get back to you.

Video Sharing Application

2008-02-08T07:32:00.001-05:00

PugClips.com is a video sharing application developed using PHP5/MySQL. It is intended to act as a YouTube clone and utilizes opensource technologies like Smarty, mencoder and ffdencode. It also uses the excellent JW FLV Media Player 3.14 located at jeroenwijering.com.

Some of the features include "bumping" videos (a rating system), leaving comments, creating user profiles, sharing videos with friends, and more.

Leave a comment if you would like to beta test the application for free, of course.

Changing environments from VS.NET 2005 to Visual Web Developer 2005 Express

2007-09-14T11:05:00.000-04:00

I have a project I have been messing around with on a USB key. At home I use Visual Studio .NET 2005 (VS.NET), but since I don't have a licensed copy of VS.NET on my work laptop, I have to use Visual Web Developer 2005 Express (VWD) there. I found that once I save my project at home I am unable to open it at work. When VS.NET 2005 saves a solution file (.sln), it will save it in 10.0 format. When VWD attempts to open the solution you get a message saying something like "...this is a solution file, but it was created using a newer version of Visual Studio." While this is true, it doesn't mean I can't fix it. VWD only parses the first line of the solution file to determine its version. By editing the file, I can get it to work in VWD. Just change "Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00" to "Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 9.00" All will be once again be aligned in the universe.

What makes a great gaming store?

2007-09-14T08:29:00.000-04:00

I was thinking what would make a good game store. Corporations have diluted the personal touch you used to get at games stores of old. The local GameStop of EB Games (now the same company) tend to have the usual, low paid, teens at the counter. They usually know some games, but don't know much about the more obscure games.

Most of the stores make their living off of trade-ins. The trade-in value is extremely low becuase they know you are at their mercy. Markup is usually 100% or more on consoles, and I believe games are close to that. Take the GameCube for example. The trade-in value is currently 10 bucks, but if you go to buy one it's usually around $75. Not that anybody wants one anymore, but parents looking for a less costly alternative to the more popular systems find these prices quite attractive while purchasing them. I wonder if they feel ripped on when trading them in? What's more, who is setting the values for trade-ins? Is there a blue book for them?

I think 3 things are key to a game store:

Knowledgeable staff. They still exist! Gaming is so mainstream now, most don't smell. The customers experience must be that the people know what they are talking about, and are excited about it.
Selection. Games, consoles, accessories... you better have them.
Demos. Being able to try out games before you buy them is ciritical. Everytime I read a good review still always wonder who wrote the review and if they like the sames things I do about games. Being able to try a console is another great way to help make your decision. I hear many people tell me they don't like what they ordered online. Well, don't be lazy and go try one out before you drop four or five hundred.

What else would make a game store better?

16Mb Blast from Laptop Wireless-G

2007-05-20T01:40:00.000-04:00

A Prostate Cancer Revolution? - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com

2007-04-27T07:46:00.000-04:00

A Prostate Cancer Revolution? - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com

DropDownList in GridView

2006-11-08T10:35:00.000-05:00

The problem I encountered was being able to use an updateable GridView using data from multiple tables. The two main tables are called Category and Forum. A forum can only belong to one category, but a category can contain multiple forums. To make things a bit more difficult, I used a associative table to relate the two called CategoryForum.

My goal is to be able to manage my forums without have to know the category ID of each category. It should be simple enough for a novice to use. My architectural solution had several components. Of course, I had the GridView. Then I had two ObjectDataSources using a web service to return forum and category data. The forum data includes a category ID via an INNER JOIN in the query. The category data is just the list of all categories.

First, I override the Page's OnInitComplete method to capture the update event:

   1:  protected override void OnInitComplete(EventArgs e)

   2:  {

   3:    base.OnInitComplete(e);

   4:    gridView.RowUpdating +=

   5:      new GridViewUpdateEventHandler(gridView_RowUpdating);

   6:  }

Next, I wrote some code for the overridden method. This code will store my DropDownList's data in the updating data objects field:

void gridView_RowUpdating(Object sender, GridViewUpdateEventArgs e) {
int index = gridView.EditIndex;
GridViewRow row = gridView.Rows[index];
DropDownList categoryDropDown =
(DropDownList) row.FindControl("ddlCategoryName");
e.NewValues["CategoryId"] =
int.Parse(categoryDropDown.SelectedValue);
}

That's all the code-behind code I needed. In design view I have two ObjectDataSources wired up to a web service that simply delivers a DataSet to each. One DataSet is my Forum data, and the other is Category data. Here's the EditItemTemplate code for the DropDownList. The datasource for the GridView is the ForumData. I used the Category datasource for the DropDownList.

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Category" SortExpression="CategoryName">
<ItemTemplate>
<%# Eval("CategoryName") %>
</ItemTemplate>
<EditItemTemplate>
<asp:DropDownList runat="server"
ID="ddlCategoryName" DataTextField="CategoryName"
DataValueField="CategoryId" DataSourceID="objCategories" />
</EditItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

Encrypting/Decrypting QueryStrings In .NET

2006-11-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

I was messing around with a secure way to pass data via a querystring today. In business you sometimes don't have a choice. What I came up with was a secure two-way encryption/decryption class. I can now encode/decode any piece of data without having knowledge of the key.

The Methods
I have an error page in an ASP.NET application. The page is basically going to act as a catch all page for errors in my forum application. I want to be able to send it exception strings without having to rely upon Server.GetLastError. I researched some of the System.Security.Cryptography namespace for a seed-based algorithm. DES seemed to fit that bill perfectly. MSDN even went so far as to write the Encrypt and Decrypt methods for me.

 1 // Encrypt the string.
 2 public byte[] Encrypt(string PlainText, SymmetricAlgorithm key)
 3 {
 4    // Create a memory stream.
 5    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
 6 
 7    // Create a CryptoStream using the memory stream and the 
 8    // CSP DES key.  
 9    CryptoStream encStream = new CryptoStream(ms, key.CreateEncryptor()  
10       CryptoStreamMode.Write);
11 
12    // Create a StreamWriter to write a string
13    // to the stream.
14    StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(encStream);
15 
16    // Write the plaintext to the stream.
17    sw.WriteLine(PlainText);
18 
19    // Close the StreamWriter and CryptoStream.
20    sw.Close();
21    encStream.Close();
22 
23    // Get an array of bytes that represents
24    // the memory stream.
25    byte[] buffer = ms.ToArray();
26 
27    // Close the memory stream.
28    ms.Close();
29 
30    // Return the encrypted byte array.
31    return buffer;
32 }
33 
34 // Decrypt the byte array.
35 public string Decrypt(byte[] CypherText, SymmetricAlgorithm key)
36 {
37    // Create a memory stream to the passed buffer.
38    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(CypherText);
39 
40    // Create a CryptoStream using the memory stream and the 
41    // CSP DES key. 
42    CryptoStream encStream = new CryptoStream(ms, key.CreateDecryptor(), 
43       CryptoStreamMode.Read);
44 
45    // Create a StreamReader for reading the stream.
46    StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(encStream);
47 
48    // Read the stream as a string.
49    string val = sr.ReadLine();
50 
51    // Close the streams.
52    sr.Close();
53    encStream.Close();
54    ms.Close();
55 
56    return val;
57 }

This is a great start if I wanted byte arrays. I need to flatten this array out so I can use it like a string. I decided to write a couple more methods named EncryptToString and DecryptToString.

 1 public string EncryptToString(string PlainText, SymmetricAlgorithm key)
 2 {
 3     byte[] buffer = this.Encrypt(PlainText, key);
 4     string temp = string.Empty;
 5 
 6     for (int i = 0; i < buffer.Length; i++)
 7     {
 8         temp += buffer[i].ToString("x2");
 9     }
10 
11     return temp;
12 }
13 
14 public string DecryptFromString(string CypherText, SymmetricAlgorithm key)
15 {
16     int arrayLen = (CypherText.Length / 2);
17     byte[] buffer = new byte[arrayLen];
18 
19     for (int i = 0; i < (CypherText.Length / 2); i++)
20     {
21         buffer[i] = Convert.ToByte(Convert.ToInt32(CypherText.Substring(i * 2, 2), 16));
22     }
23 
24     return this.Decrypt(buffer, key);
25 }

These methods simply use the two that MSDN provided, but add some app-centric features. EncryptToString will get the byte array from the Encrypt method. Then it will create, and append to, a string while converting each item in the byte array to a two-digit hexadecimal number. The reason I converted to hex was to shorten the total length of the string. A handy byproduct was that it added yet another layer of obfuscation to my data making that much more difficult to decrypt. DecryptFromString takes the encrypted string and essentially reverses the process.

What about the key?
This is my favorite part of the entire solution. The key is generated as an application level variable in the Global.asax. I have to admit that I don't use the Global.asax that much, but it seemed like a reasonable place for the code to generate the key.

1 void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) 
2 {
3      DESCryptoServiceProvider key = new DESCryptoServiceProvider();
4      Application.Add("SecureKey", key);
5 }

Of course, this could have been Session level, but I didn't need to change the key that frequently. When adding this code to your page be sure to import the namespace, <%@ Import Namespace="System.Security.Cryptography" %>.

In Action
The final piece is how we would use this in the code. Another reason I went this route was to simplify what I needed to code when using this class. In this example, we have made reference to the class containing the encryption/decryption methods. I called mine, Crypto. We'll be encoding an Exception string and sending it to an error page.

1 Crypto cryptKeeper = new Crypto();
2 string encryptedText = cryptKeeper.EncryptToString(
3     new Exception("The request could not be completed.").ToString(),
4     Application["SecureKey"] as System.Security.Cryptography.SymmetricAlgorithm);
5 
6 Response.Redirect("~\\Error.aspx?msg=" + encryptedText);

The encryptedText variable looks something like this, 6998d04ec523b093fe0ce9ce9994915a076199ef1f1663d3273e23
72cb5b53dea83f931016f58dc9ae21a4f335de16038eecaee374cacc28. The error page takes the parameter and decrypts it.

1 Crypto cryptKeeper = new Crypto();
2 if (Request.Params["msg"] != null)
3 {
4     lblMsg.Text = cryptKeeper.DecryptFromString(Request.Params["msg"], 
5         Application["SecureKey"] as SymmetricAlgorithm);
6 }

Notes
Because I made my key an Application variable, it will be the same for every user of the site and only change when the site is restarted. If I were to make it a Session variable, it would change for every user, and that may be the way to go for me in the future.

I think the possibilities with this are endless. You don't have to use it to pass secure data via a querystring. It can be used to securely store data in your database. You can code your app to generate and store the DES key daily, weekly, or monthly. Access levels to data should be setup to only allow authorized personnel access to the key table. It's not so much different than what my company spent $50,000 on.

Error When Writing to Custom Event Log

2006-11-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

I was getting an error when attempting to write to a custom Event Log on Server 2003 from an ASP page. It looked something like this:

Cannot open log for source 'someSource'. You may not have write access.

The solution was to change the security descriptor on the custom event log's key. I did this by browsing to the custom log's folder in registry, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\<Custom Event Log>. In that folder there will be a key named CustomSD. Double-click the key to open it up for editing.

O:BAG:SYD:(D;;0xf0007;;;AN)(D;;0xf0007;;;BG)(A;;0xf0007;;;SY)(A;;0x7;;;BA)(A;;0x7;;;SO)(A;;0x3;;;IU)(A;;0x3;;;SU)(A;;0x3;;;S-1-5-3)

The section highlighted in red denies Read, Write, and Clear access to the log for Anonymous logons (AN) and Built-in guests (BG). This explicit deny overrode any other access I attempted to add to the string.

In order to grant my ASP permission to write to the log, I had to make some modifications. The IUSR account is part of two groups, Users and Guests. With Guests and Anonymous being denied, I now knew I needed to grant them access to this log. A couple of searches on MSDN brought up a full description of the SDDL (Security Descriptor Description Language).

Let's dissect the string (D;;0xf0007;;;AN). The 'D' that appears in the descriptor means 'Access Denied.' The 0xf00007 is hex that will basically deny any type of access currently available. I changed the string to explicitly grant write access to Anonymous logons, (A;;0x2;;;AN). The access rights are your cumulative rights where Read = 1, Write = 2, and Clear = 4. The hexadecimal value of 0x2 evaluates to 2 in decimal which is write access.

After making the change to that string and a similar one to (D;;0xf0007;;;BG) my string looked like:

O:BAG:SYD:(A;;0x2;;;AN)(A;;0x2;;;BG)(A;;0xf0007;;;SY)(A;;0x7;;;BA)(A;;0x7;;;SO)(A;;0x3;;;IU)(A;;0x3;;;SU)(A;;0x3;;;S-1-5-3)

I refreshed my test ASP page and the error was gone. I didn't have to reboot or restart IIS.

References

MSDN

Corporate Loyalty

2006-11-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

How much loyalty do people have for their employers these days? How much should we have? Is loyalty earned?

The company I work for unceremoniously laid off a few people so we could start outsourcing. It's hard to see people go, and the right way to do it is to give them a few weeks notice, or even a few days for that matter. But no, they got about 15 minutes notice (after lunch) to clear out their cubes before getting escorted to the door. No severance, no notice, and no goodbyes.

If I were offered a position tomorrow, I'm sure the company would expect two weeks notice. But, I can't help to ask why? Why should I extend that courtesy, when they couldn't do it for those laid off? Trust me, if they needed to lay off a few more people, I'm sure I'd be let go just like them. Yeah I'll hear, "you shouldn't burn bridges" or some other cliché. While that's true to a degree, I think you need to stand up for what you believe in morally and ethically. After all, you have to sleep! If the new company says they need me in two days, I can't say I would argue with them.

Framework Errors Thanks to the IIS LockDown Tool

2006-07-05T12:43:00.000-04:00

I started getting the following error after running the IIS LockDown Tool on my development PC at work. It was on a virtual machine so there was no real damage done. Use this as an example of what could happen.

“Cannot execute a program. The command being executed was "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe" /noconfig /fullpaths @"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\sharedservices\8edd40bf\a4dccc9b\f8suefbe.cmdline".

This was occurring for my 1.1 apps as well. After much searching and messing with permissions, I found the solution. A simple “repair” of the framework install does the trick and resets the permissions appropriately. I believe the reason I could not get the permissions correct is because the tool will reset registry persmissions for certain nodes. Depending on how many are change, you can see that this could become a tedious task if done manually.

If this post helps you, let me know an post a comment. - E

Project REAL

2006-06-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is a cool project to develop Business Intelligence standards using Microsoft SQL Server solutions.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/solutions/bi/projectreal.mspx

Updating a Database Using a DataSet With EntLib 2.0

2006-06-08T16:46:00.000-04:00


public partial class StateDisclaimer : UserControl
{
   private Database db;
   private DataSet ds;
   private DbCommand cmd;
   private string strConfigParameters;
   
   public StateDisclaimer()
   {
      InitializeComponent();
   }
   
   private void StateDisclaimer_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
      LoadDataGrid();
   }
   
   private void LoadDataGrid()
   {
      try
      {
         // Create the Database
         db = DatabaseFactory.CreateDatabase("dbConnection");
         // Retrieve the initial DataSet
         ds = new DataSet();
         cmd = db.GetStoredProcCommand("sp_getMiniMirandaInfo");
         strConfigParameters = "ConfigParameters";
         db.LoadDataSet(cmd, ds, strConfigParameters);
         dataGridView1.DataSource = ds.Tables[0];
         dataGridView1.Columns[0].Visible = false;
         dataGridView1.Columns[1].ReadOnly = true;
         dataGridView1.Sort(dataGridView1.Columns[1], ListSortDirection.Ascending);
         dataGridView1.AutoResizeColumns();
      }
      catch (DbException ex)
      {
         MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
      }
   }
      
   private void btnApply_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
      if (ds.HasChanges())
      {
         DbCommand updateCommand = db.GetStoredProcCommand("sp_UpdateConfigParametersDataValue");
         db.AddInParameter(updateCommand, "Category", DbType.String, "Category", DataRowVersion.Current);
         db.AddInParameter(updateCommand, "KeyValue", DbType.String, "KeyValue", DataRowVersion.Current);
         db.AddInParameter(updateCommand, "DataValue", DbType.String, "DataValue", DataRowVersion.Current);
         int rowsAffected = db.UpdateDataSet(ds, "ConfigParameters", null, updateCommand, null, UpdateBehavior.Standard);
         MessageBox.Show(rowsAffected.ToString());
      }
   }

   private void btnCancel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
      if (ds.HasChanges())
      {
         try
         {
            ds.RejectChanges();
            dataGridView1.Refresh();
         }
         catch (DbException ex)
         {
            MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
         }
      }
   }
}

A Day of Mourning

2006-05-31T12:38:00.000-04:00

Today is a day of mourning. A once great man has succumbed to the pressures of life. Wait, that’s a typo. He has succumbed to the pressures of WIFE, and went out and bought a minivan. Here’s to you, and your recently detached testicles. Godspeed!

You know who you are ;)

MSDN Magazine HTML Help (.CHM) Index

2006-05-30T16:49:00.000-04:00

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/htmlhelp.aspx

ModTool Gets a Name Change

2006-05-03T08:07:00.000-04:00

Based upon beta-tester feedback I have decided to change the name of ModTool to WoW Mod Manager. This new name will be part of the next beta release due May 9, 2006.

Thanks for the great feedback!

ModTool Goes to Beta

2006-04-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

ModTool is a World of Warcraft UI modification management tool. It allows you to completely manage the mods you have installed. What's more, it will allow you to select which mods to enable/disable on a per character basis.

Select the mods you wish to manage and right-click to display a menu of options. Multiple mods can quickly be enabled, disabled, or deleted. You can also check for an updated version of a mod by right-clicking it, and selecting Update Mod. This action will load your default web browser and search for the latest version.

This release is beta so please post any comments to this blog entry.

Requirements

Windows 98 or better
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
A Pulse

Download it here.

ASP.NET, PHP, ASP Performance Matrix

2006-03-31T14:53:00.000-05:00

I was reading an article online comparing PHP to ASP.NET the other day. The author, an Oracle employee, had some valid claims regarding PHP’s advantages when it comes to costs and flexibility, but he also had some unfounded claims that PHP was more efficient and faster. I beg to differ, so I ran some tests using a similar function for all three languages.

Test Platform

The test was run on an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ with 2 GB of ram running Windows XP Professional SP2. We used a standard install of Internet Information Services and gave PHP the added benefit of installing Zend Optimizer v2.6.2. We used the php5isapi.dll to map and execute our PHP scripts.

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (2.08 GHz)
2 GB Ram
Windows XP Professional SP2
Internet Information Services v5.1
Zend Optimizer v2.6.2
PHP 5.1.2
ASP 3.0

Test Methodology

We wrote a similar script to test each language. It was a simple for loop that was programmed to loop 80 million times. You might need to increase the max execution settings in the php.ini file for PHP, or increase it programmatically. We chose to do it in the php.ini to make sure it was set correctly. The same holds true for ASP. You may need to increase the Server.ScriptTimeout value.

Some lines below might wrap, so be sure to check that before attempting to execute the code.

ASP Code

<%

'Server.ScriptTimeout = 360

'Response.Buffer = False

Dim i

Dim startTime

Dim endTime

Dim totalTime

For x = 1 To 10

startTime = Now

Response.Write("Start Time: " & startTime & "<br />")

  For i = 1 To 80000000

    If i > 0 Then

    End If

  Next

  endTime = Now

totalTime = endTime - startTime

  Response.Write("End Time: " & endTime & "<br />")

Response.Write("Total time: " & Minute(totalTime) & ":" & Second(totalTime) & "<br /><br />")

Next

%>

PHP Code

<?php

function getmicrotime()

{

  list($usec, $sec) = explode(" ",microtime());

  return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);

}

for ($x=0; $x < 10; $x++)

{

  $number = 0;

  $time_start = getmicrotime();

  for ($i=0; $i < 80000000; $i++)

  {

    if ("hello" == "world") { }

  }

  $time_end = getmicrotime();

  $time = $time_end - $time_start;

  echo "Did 80M
additions in $time seconds";

}

?>

ASP.NET (VB.NET) Code

<%@ Language="VB" %>

<script runat="server" language="vb">

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)

  Dim i As Long

  Dim x As Int16

  Dim startTime As Decimal

  Dim endTime As Decimal

  Dim totalTime As Decimal

  For x = 1 To 10

    startTime = Convert.ToDecimal(DateTime.Now.ToString("ss.fff"))

    Response.Write("Start Time: " & startTime.ToString() & "<br />")



    For i = 1 To 80000000

      If "hello" Is "world" Then

      End If

    Next

    endTime = Convert.ToDecimal(DateTime.Now.ToString("ss.fff"))

    totalTime = endTime - startTime

    Response.Write("End Time: " & endTime.ToString() & "<br />")

    Response.Write("Total time: " & totalTime.ToString() & "<br /><br />")

  Next

End Sub

Results

It’s no surprise that ASP.NET is the clear winner. The results that did surprise me were that Zend Optimizer consistently increased PHP’s performance by nearly 50%. That is a huge number. It is nonsense not to use PHP with the Optimizer according to our study.

The PHP results were roughly double of the numbers listed below without the Zend Optimizer running. And, as you can see, ASP’s performance is just plain bad.

ASP.NET	PHP	ASP
0.14	15.58716	33
0.125	15.92204	33
0.157	15.58681	35
0.124	15.58992	35
0.125	15.59410	33
0.125	15.93063	34
0.141	15.60623	33
0.125	15.60107	33
0.14	15.60247	34
0.125	16.14546	35

Results are in seconds

We welcome and performance enhancements and/or your own results. Just post your thoughts, results and any suggestions. I want to extend special thanks to Rufus Harvey for his technical prowess in helping put this test together!

- Ernest Carroll

Ajax or JavaScript Remote Scripting?

2005-10-25T08:14:00.000-04:00

We are supporting a Microsoft™ Remote Scripting (MSRS) application at work. It's been an absolute nightmare. I am nearly two years into this application and the shear amount of patches that must go in prevent us from being able to replace the MSRS code. What's more, the MSRS code is nearly impossible to efficiently debug especially when the original developer was a hack. It's like trying to piece together a grenade after it goes off.

There are quite a few options out there since my first foray into remote scripting. When I say remote scripting I mean real remote scripting using JavaScript Remote Scripting. I first learned about his from Brent Ashley's site at Ashley IT around four years ago. It was powerful then and still is. Microsoft™'s recent release of Atlas has harnessed the potential that JSRS began.

There a some great examples of remote scripting that are worthwhile to review. These include: Google Mail, Hotmail Beta, and Microsoft's Live Office.

SharePoint Web Parts Development Guide

2005-10-24T23:36:00.000-04:00

I built my SharePoint Web Parts development environment. I will get into why I am building this in a future post, but for now, you should just follow along and stop asking questions =)

Prerequisites
There are a couple tools you need to get Visual Studio .NET 2003 setup. The first is to get a copy of the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly and copy it to your development PC. You can find the DLL on your SharePoint server located, by default, in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\ISAPI. Put it in a location you will not forget but can easily recognize its importance. I chose C:\Development\SharePoint\WebParts for mine. The second tool you will need is really not a tool, but if you want an idea about what you are developing with, get the less-than-robust SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 Software Development Kit that Microsoft provides. Hey, some documentation is always better than none! Finally, download the Web Part Templates for Visual Studio .NET. This will get VS.NET ready with some nice templates to see some code in action.

Ready for Action
When you open VS.NET you can select File > New > Project. You will see a new option for Web Part Library. If you installation of the Web Part Templates went well your new project will load.

Otherwise, you might see an error saying that the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll could not be found and that you should reinstall the templates. In fact, I received that error. I chose to ignore and just added the dll to the project’s references.

Stay tuned for my next post...

Questions for C# Component Developers

2005-10-12T21:52:00.000-04:00

Juxtapose the use of override with new. What is shadowing?
- Override redefines an inherited method which was marked as virtual or abstract,and its access level must be the same as the method it overrides. New allows you to completely hide an inherited member and create a different implementation of it with whatever attributes you choose. Shadowing is another name for disabling an inherited method and redefining it.
Explain the use of virtual, sealed, override, and abstract.
- Virtual marks a method as overridable. Sealed marks a class as uninheritable. Override redefines a method declared as virtual. Abstract defines a class which cannot be instantiated, or a method which must be overriden in any derivedclasses.
Explain the importance and use of each component of this string: Foo.Bar,Version=2.0.205.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=593777ae2d274679d
- Assemblyname -- used for loading. Assembly version -- also used for loading.Culture -- defines culture settings used for string translation andother locale-specific settings. PublicKeyToken -- used to uniquely identifythis assembly and prevent collisions.
Explain the differences between public, protected, private and internal.
- Public:accessible from any class. Private: accessible only from within the same class. Protected: like private, but derived classes may also access. Internal:like public, but accessible only by code within the same assembly.
What benefit do you get from using a Primary Interop Assembly (PIA)?
- APIA is a strongly-named assembly which defines COM interfaces for a component.Because it is strongly-named, it can be loaded into the GAC and verified against the COM component's own signature to give the component collision-protection and authorship-verification benefits when interacing with .NET code.
By what mechanism does NUnit know what methods to test?
- Readingattributes defined for classes and methods via reflection.
What is the difference between: catch(Exception e){throw e;} and catch(Exceptione){throw;}
- Both statements will catch and throw exception, butthe latter will preserve the original exception stack.
What is the difference between typeof(foo) and myFoo.GetType()?
- The first returns the object's type at compile time; the second returns itat runtime.
Explain what’s happening in the first constructor:public class c{ public c(string a) : this() {;}; public c() {;} } How is this construct useful?
- The first constructor invokes the base constructor in addition to its own functionality; this wouldbe useful if your base initialized basic field values or had other code that all other constructors would utilize.
What is this? Can this be used within a static method?
- The "this" reference refers to the current object context. Static methods have no context,so it is not valid.