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Code clarity: Tips on using Virtual Directories in ASP.NET, MVC, HttpSimulator, SiteMap

Tips on using Virtual Directories in ASP.NET, MVC, HttpSimulator, SiteMap
Imagine you develop a web-site. You register IIS site to test it, seems like all is ok. You deploy it to customer, and… oh no! where is my images, styles, scripts? and why site map causes an exception?!
It is common situation when site developed and tested on IIS web-site root, and deployed into Virtual Directory. Here I want to describe some tips to avoid such situations.

via Code clarity: Tips on using Virtual Directories in ASP.NET, MVC, HttpSimulator, SiteMap.

Server Side Paging using SQL Server 2005 – SQLTeam.com

A common activity in applications is to page results or record sets from a database. This is usually done on the client using the clients paging functionality or on the server through a variety of methods. In SQL Server 2000 those server side methods typically used dynamic SQL or nested TOP clauses and werent very efficient. Using Common Table Expressions in SQL Server 2005 we have a better way to page record sets on the server.The Members Page on SQLTeam.com lists the first 20 members sorted by number of posts. In order to generate this it selects the entire set of members, returns it to the client and then displays the first 20 rows using ADOs paging functionality. The SELECT statement it runs looks something like this

via Server Side Paging using SQL Server 2005 – SQLTeam.com.

Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery

Behind his jabs at the Christian faith (though it’s usually "young earth" creationism that raises his ire) stands a confirmed naturalist who asks how channeled revelations square with science. Unlike Christians, rationalists do not believe demons exist, so they cannot dismiss the difficulties posed by occult phenomena or The Urantia Book as manifestations of demonic power. In other words, humanists don’t have a "Satan of the gaps," as Christians do, to account supernaturally for problematic occult experiences. Their very rationalism forces them to seek natural explanations, often long after evangelicals have despaired of earthly answers and begun talking about demons.

While I certainly believe in supernatural agents, both demonic and divine, who influence people on earth, my point is that we theists sometimes give up too easily. In this case it took a hard-core skeptic to unwind methodically the tangled origins and material fallacies embodied in The Urantia Book (UB). His chronicle is a landmark exposé of the origins of the Urantian movement.

via Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery.

Tim Tebow, John 3:16 and the number 316 – Ted Biondo – Rockford, IL – Rockford Register Star

The passage in John, Chapter 3, Verse 16 reads, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Officially, Tebow passed for 316 yards against the Steelers, completing 10 of 21 pass attempts — meaning he passed for an NFL playoff record of 31.6 yards per completion. Also, the football game peaked with a rating share of 31.6/46 between 8:00 and 8:15PM E.T. the highest rating for a wild card game in 24 years.

via Tim Tebow, John 3:16 and the number 316 – Ted Biondo – Rockford, IL – Rockford Register Star.

US Military Rescues Iranian Sailors, Again – ABC News

For the second time in as many weeks, the U.S. military has rescued distressed Iranian sailors, despite the extremely high tensions between the two nations.

According to the Navy’s account, at about 3 a.m. local time an American Coast Guard patrol boat in the north Persian Gulf was hailed by flares and flashlights from an Iranian cargo ship whose engine room was flooding. Six Iranians were rescued from the ship, fed halal meals in accordance with Islamic law, and later taken to shore.

"Saving lives is the last thing you expect to do at [3 a.m.] while patrolling in the Northern Arabian Gulf, but being in the Coast Guard, that’s what we are trained to do," Boatswain Mate 2nd Class Emily Poole said in a statement by the Navy, using an alternate designation for the Persian Gulf.

via US Military Rescues Iranian Sailors, Again – ABC News.

U.S. Navy Rescues Iranians From Pirates – ABC News

If it were the other way around Iran would have incarcerated the rescued Americans for being “spies”. We did the right thing and I’m proud of our Navy boys.

The U.S. Navy rescued more than a dozen Iranian sailors who had been held at sea by a band of pirates for weeks, the Pentagon announced today.

According to the military’s account, an American helicopter from the destroyer USS Kidd "detected a suspected pirate skiff alongside" an Iranian-flagged fishing ship in the Arabian Sea approximately 175 miles southeast of Muscat, Oman, Thursday. At the same time, the Iranian ship was able to send a distress call, claiming the ship was held by pirates.

American Navy sailors with a "visit, board, search and seizure team" then boarded the Iranian ship and were able to detain 15 suspected pirates and free the 13-member Iranian crew, the Pentagon said. A Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent on the scene, Josh Schminky, said the Iranian crew had been forced to help the pirates carry out operations and pirates had apparently been using the Iranian ship as a "mothership".

"When we boarded, we gave [the Iranians] food, water, and medical care," Schminky said in a Pentagon report. "They had been through a lot. We went out of our way to treat the fishing crew with kindness and respect."

via U.S. Navy Rescues Iranians From Pirates – ABC News.

Navy readies for Chinese power grab on shipping – Washington Times

The Navy’s top officer detailed Tuesday the strategy for making sure the South China Sea and Western Pacific remain open to international shipping, saying an emerging China might try to “limit access in the region.”

The remarks by Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, represented a frank assessment of China’s potential power grabs as it continues a military buildup that includes more ships and anti-ship weapons.

Adm. Greenert spoke a week after President Obama presented his military strategy, which states that the armed forces will put renewed focus on Asia and the Middle East. The Obama strategy mentions China as a “regional power” that can affect U.S. security “in a variety of ways.”

Appearing at the Center for a New American Security think tank, Adm. Greenert was more specific.

“Over the long term, China will have the greatest potential, I view, to affect the economic and the security dynamics throughout the region and perhaps the world,” he said. “Their economic strength has grown. They have great regional capability and capacity, and it’s growing.

“And under circumstances, that capability could limit access in the region.”

The admiral said the Navy has deployed 100 of its 285 ships, and half are in the Western Pacific.

via Navy readies for Chinese power grab on shipping – Washington Times.

HTML 5: Current browser support

Here’s one of the many sites that gives a “score” on how well html5 standards are supported per browser.
http://html5test.com/index.html

Here’s the summary though… (Score is out of possible 450)

Current           Version     Score
Google Chrome     15.0.874    342
Opera             11.60       325
Mozilla Firefox   8.0         314
Apple Safari      5.1         293
Microsoft IE      9           141

Dev or Beta       Version     Score
Google Chrome     16.0.891    343
Opera             12 alpha    340
Microsoft IE      10          300
Microsoft IE      10 PP       299

Use ViewData and Implement ViewModel Classes: The Official Microsoft ASP.NET Site

Using a ViewModel Pattern

The ViewData dictionary approach has the benefit of being fairly fast and easy to implement. Some developers don’t like using string-based dictionaries, though, since typos can lead to errors that will not be caught at compile-time. The un-typed ViewData dictionary also requires using the "as" operator or casting when using a strongly-typed language like C# in a view template.

An alternative approach that we could use is one often referred to as the "ViewModel" pattern. When using this pattern we create strongly-typed classes that are optimized for our specific view scenarios, and which expose properties for the dynamic values/content needed by our view templates. Our controller classes can then populate and pass these view-optimized classes to our view template to use. This enables type-safety, compile-time checking, and editor intellisense within view templates.

via Use ViewData and Implement ViewModel Classes: The Official Microsoft ASP.NET Site.