jk

Debugging ASP.NET Application events

2011-03-03T12:47:00.003-06:00

Lately, I've been working on some ASP.NET sites. I wanted to debug items that get created during the Application.* events (in this case, OnStart specifically).

Sadly, if you just put a breakpoint in the code and hit F5, you get the maddening experience of the debugger not stopping on your breakpoint.

Thankfully, through the magic of System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break(), you can force a window to popup, asking which version of Visual Studio you want to attach as a debugger!

Happy debugging!
jk

HOWTO: Remove linebreaks in VS.NET

2011-02-18T20:41:00.002-06:00

This little trick helped me while working on a JsUnit test…thought I’d pass it on.

I was taking a long chunk of HTML in a unit test, pulled it into vs.net, formatted it so it was human readable, and then needed to ‘unformat’ it. Instead of manually deleting the new line characters, I did this:

1. Control-H to open the find & replace dialog

2. Put in the regular expression \n (newline)

3. Selected the ‘Use’ checkbox and Regular expressions from the dropdown

4. Clicked replace all

5. Postponed carpel tunnel surgery for a bit longer… J

Enjoy!

adapted from: http://geekswithblogs.net/mnf/archive/2008/03/04/remove-empty-lines-in--text-using-visual-studio.aspx

Vein perspective and empathy

2010-12-13T00:09:00.001-06:00

A short story...it's a bit heavy, so if that's not your gig, please skip this post...

The other day, I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard about 9am to grab some breakfast when a gentleman stopped me on the sidewalk.

Immediately, I felt for this guy; he was clearly living on the street, and was physically in rough shape. He told me straight out he was a junkie and asked if I had spare change to give him.

We chatted for a bit, and he suddenly stopped, looked me straight in the eye and said, "man, I wish I had your veins". I didn't know how to respond to that, but kept it light and fun and told him he could not have my veins... :) -- for just a moment, I connected with this guy.

Perspective is an interesting thing - my 'veins' are quite normal in size, appearance and content. However, a guy shooting heroin would have a different view.

I asked him to be safe and take care of himself. I hope he discovers the feelings/experiences/thoughts/emotions causing him turn to chemicals to cope with life. After reading up on heroin, I know it is both physically and mentally addictive...... :(

Perspective and empathy are two qualities which would make the world a better place...I hope this guy finds his way.

I'm back

2010-05-05T19:26:00.002-05:00

ok, I'm back on the Blogger -- tired of maintaining my own blog software :)

New Zealand Golfer Falls off Cliff - News - FOX Sports on MSN

2010-05-05T19:25:00.000-05:00

New Zealand Golfer Falls off Cliff - News - FOX Sports on MSN: "Golfer falls off cliff while looking for ball"

Stay away from the edge of the cliff! (at least the guy's medical condition says he's in stable condition)

New blog location

2008-05-12T21:36:00.001-05:00

Ok, it's been over a year since I've posted here...hey, life happens.
This is my farewell post on this blog. I created a new personal blog today located at http://www.jeffknutson.net/blog. Come on over and check it out!

I will leave these posts here for posterity and good times!

Cheers
jk

Pig out picks

2007-02-26T21:45:00.000-06:00

http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100156601&imageindex=1

DON’T EAT THESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The NBA

2007-02-25T22:55:00.000-06:00

This (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070223) is probably one of the funniest page 2 articles I’ve *EVER* seen. (Courtesy of Mr. Bill Simmons of ESPN).

I didn’t know that F-minus-minus-minus, F-infinity-minus and G were real grades J

Go Wolves; KG Rocks!

Cheers

Moving an SVN repository between machines

2007-02-18T21:30:00.001-06:00

I thought this was a pretty nice, straightforward howto on migrating a
repository from one machine to another machine. I naively thought one
could just copy and paste the directories, heh heh.

enjoy!

Trust is not security

2007-02-16T10:32:00.001-06:00

February 12, 2007 (Computerworld) -- In Lancaster, Pa., last week, the county coroner was brought to court in handcuffs. A grand jury indicted Dr. Gary Kirchner, charging him with giving out his account name and password for a county Web site that contained confidential police 911 information. What kind of information? Names of accident victims and police informants, medical conditions, witness accounts, autopsy reports and not-yet-substantiated accusations. The site was the access point for real-time data generated and used by firefighters, ambulance crews and other emergency responders.

And who did the coroner allegedly give his password to? Newspaper reporters. Now there’s a trusting user.”The entire article can be found here: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=282376&source=NLT_SEC&nlid=38

- Clearly this guy should not have been giving out his login credentials to anyone (much less a member of the media, jeez).

- Where were the auditing procedures and detection? "...an IT staffer checked Web site logs and discovered that the site was accessed more than 50 times in two weeks from computers at a newspaper office". OK, logging was working, but if no one reviews the logs regularly, or notifications are not sent out for suspicious activity, the logs provide less value (they provided good forensic value once people realized there was a problem though).

- Thankfully "a reporter from a competing newspaper called the county to find out why he didn’t have access". Just think if this reporter didn't call; the security breach would still be going on....

This article again proves that the human element is typically the weakest when it comes to computer security. I’m betting they are going to make an example of this guy…

Alice & Bob

2007-02-10T20:18:00.001-06:00

Things like patterns and best practices help out developers by promoting consistency and communication. e.g.

In describing a piece of code to a fellow developer, which is easier to understand:

1) I defined a family of algorithms, encapsulated each one as an object, and made them interchangeable
-or-

2) “I used a Strategy Pattern” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_pattern)

Clearly #2 is easier to understand. Not only did I use a tried-and-true coding technique (the pattern), but the term “Strategy Pattern” conveys special meaning and becomes part of the common language amongst developers.

In that same vein, the Security Community uses a common set of terms to represent characters in a system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_cryptography

. The canonical example of this is: ‘Alice sends a message to Bob, but does not want Eve to read the message’. When two security professionals sit down to discuss a scenario, this common verbiage raises the level and efficiency of communication.

Please read the ‘Characters in cryptography’ link and familiarize yourself with the characters. I think these characters can have potential value in many developers day-to-day lives, just like design patterns already do. Improving communication and developing a common set of terms will only help a team be more successful!

AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am - Live@ 7

2007-02-09T10:56:00.001-06:00

Golf season is here again (yea!). For the last few years, PGA.com broadcasted Live from the 17^th hole of Sawgrass (the island green). This year, they have expanded their offering to 10 tournaments. This week, at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am (Pebble Beach Golf Links) they are showing the par 3 7^th, one of the most scenic, shortest/scariest holes on tour.

You can view the web cast here: http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r005/liveat/#

Here is a link to the Google Map of the 7^th: http://tinyurl.com/3c54yf (the green is at the southern end of the peninsula in this picture)

Yesterday (2/8/2007) the pros were hitting knock-down 7 & 8 irons into this 115 yard hole (with a 32’ elevation drop) due to high winds and the back pin position…

Fore!

New-old content

2007-02-07T22:54:00.001-06:00

Apologies for any confusion the new posts (actually old posts from the soon-to-be-deprecated Magenic .Text blog). I tried to preserve the content and the original post date/times…I’ve noticed that Outlook 2007 doesn’t handle the ATOM feed date/times appropriately…grrr…

Spring is almost here; so is Twin Cities Code Camp : Spring 2007

2007-02-07T21:33:00.001-06:00

Mr. Bock (http://www.jasonbock.net) is organizing the 2^nd Twin Cities Code Camp (http://www.twincitiescodecamp.com/TCCC/Spring2007/Sessions.aspx) on April 28th, 2007.

I’m very excited to do a session with Dan (check out his feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/humanstuff). We’re going to tackle the newly released (December 2006) Web Service Software Factory for WCF put out by the Microsoft Patterns and Practices Group.

The 1^st code camp was a great time; don’t miss this one! The .Net folks got along with the Ruby folks who got along with the Java folks - it was one big geek-love-fest (no, no, nothing dirty) :) Please register here:

Current sessions (75 minutes) and Chalk Talks (30 minutes) include:

Sessions
-3D Construction Basics in WPF - Mike Hodnick
-CPU and Game Emulation Design - David Pinch
-Delegation and Kerberos in the Enterprise - David Baldauff
-Developing for Windows Vista using Visual Studio 2005 - Cory Smith
-Extending Microsoft Office 2007 as a Platform - Scott Yokiel
-If Darwin Could Write Code - Jake Good
-Inside the WCF Web Service Software Factory - Jeff Knutson and Dan Mork
-An Introduction to LINQ and the ADO.NET Entity Framework - Adam Grocholski
-An Introduction to PowerShell - Neil Iversen
-There Must be Fifty Ways to Unit Test your Software - Jon Stonecash
-What Ruby on Rails can Teach .NET Developers - Dan Mork and John Howes

Chalk Talks
-Beyond Orcas - Where is .NET Going? - Jason Bock
-SSIS Tips and Tricks - David Baldauff
-Web Part Development - Neil Iversen

Hackers attack Dolphin Stadium website -- beware

2007-02-02T14:47:00.000-06:00

STAY AWAY for a while and make sure your machines are patched!

see post at:
http://www.scmagazine.com/us/news/article/630637/just-two-days-super-bowl-xli-hackers-use-dolphin-stadium-website-exploit-pcs/

Truth in advertising --or-- Archer Farms Margherita pizza dissapoints

2007-01-21T14:08:00.000-06:00

Ok, I know frozen pizza is frozen pizza, but this is totally ridiculous. I LOVE margherita pizzas, but will *NEVER* buy this one again unless Archer Farms decides to improve the recipe and quality of this product.

Post #100 - Protecting yourself (and your company)

2007-01-05T20:01:00.000-06:00

Sadly, there are bad people out in the world and the virtual world. Many coffee shops and bars offer free (read:unencrypted) WiFi to their patrons. This service is very convienent and fun; hey, who wants to work in an office setting when you could be hoisting a frothy beverage (coffee or beer, your choice) in the comfortable setting with your laptop and a few friends???

The problem is, no one believes there is a bad person lurking at a coffee shop, just waiting for you to enter your domain username and password to access corporate email/intranet/eBay/PayPal/Hotmail/your bank...

Are you protecting yourself and your company? I ran across an article titled How to protect yourself at wireless hot spots which offers some simple tips and techniques on protecting your data. Here are the highlights from this article:

1. Disable ad-hoc mode -- PLEASE PLEASE do this; it is so simple and the cost of using ad-hoc mode far outweigh the benefits from a security standpoint.
2. File Sharing -- many people doen't even know much about this, so if you don't know how to use it, reduce your attack surface and TURN IT OFF! Even if you think you know how to use it, make sure you are only sharing what you intend to share with the world. I know, your mom always told you to share, but if she would have known about unencrypted WiFi, she would have put on the disclaimer!!! :)
3. Turn off network discovery (Vista only) - I have not fired up Vista yet, so I have nothing intelligent to add here....
4. Carry an encrypted USB flash drive - I like this one; I don't own one of these yet, but suspect I will be picking one up very soon; not so much for storing my OS on it, but strictly for data...
5. Protect yourself with a virtual private network - VPN == goodness; 'nuff said
6. Disable your wireless adapter - ok, this maybe is not a reality, but it *IS* a possibility
7. Watch out for shoulder surfers - The security mantra of "Social engineering trumps most security systems" applies here!

Happy new year and 'safe' surfing!!

jk

Stock touting and a cute little HTML trick

2007-01-05T07:44:00.000-06:00

Stock Touting

While reading an artcile about how stock-spammers make money (you know, the emails saying a particular stock is going to be hot), I followed the research link to a Harvard web page titled Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity. I enjoyed playing with the stock simulator at the harvard site also which simulates the scenario from both spammer and spam recipient point-of-view. It is hard to believe that this kind of social engineering works, but the facts don't lie. :) The only thing I could even *remotely* consider doing on these would be to buy short!!!!!!

A cute little HTML trick

While reading the Harvard page, I noticed this text: "If the email addresses are unreadable, click here. They cannot be copied/pasted directly from this page." which naturally made me try to highlight the authors' email address and copy them. As advertised, it appeared to mangle the email address. After looking into it a bit more, I figured out the little trick: the web page author used a combination of the PRE tag along with a STYLE attribute. I'll show this below: first with no 'style' attribute so you can see the 'real' text and then with the style attribute of "line-height: 0px" to see the obfuscated text. (I will change the email addresses of the real authors to protect their addresses...). They used the 2 line technique, multiple lines also works (as shown below).

Un-Obfuscated


r b t p o m i . o 
 o o @ o k a l c m

Obfuscated (2 lines)


r b t p o m i . o 
 o o @ o k a l c m

Obfuscated (3 lines)


r  o  p  k  i  c 
 o  t  o  m  l  o 
  b  @  o  a  .  m

Wrapup

1. If spammers can't make money (by stock touting and every other nefarious ploy, they'll stop spamming.
2. Try out this fun little HTML trick! It should help slow down unsophisticated email collectors, and if nothing else, it is like a little parlour trick to impress your geeky friends :)

Not even PDFs are safe - Security hole in Acrobat Plugin

2007-01-04T18:02:00.000-06:00

A plugin for Acrobat Reader has a major security hole, so please, please, please be careful and only open trusted PDFs for a while until a patch is available.

from: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9007051&source=NLT_SEC&nlid=38

"January 03, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Security researchers are poring over what one vendor has called a "breathtaking" weakness in the Web browser plug-in for Adobe Systems Inc.'s Acrobat Reader program used to open files in the popular Portable Document Format. "

Browse safely!
jk

C00D2EEF Unable to locate the media server. The operation timed out.

2006-12-13T20:46:00.000-06:00

While toting my laptop between home and my client, I need to change the internet settings for proxy server and automatic configuration script. I had accidentally left my proxy server checked when I got home and then installed the Zune software. Naturally the Zune media player took the settings from Internet Explorer (you *ARE* on IE 7.0, right? :) ).

Becuase of this, I was able to view and search in Zune Marketplace, but could not connect to the media server. These settings are located under Options -> Playback -> More Options... -> Network tab, and then find HTTP in the listview and configure the proxy properly.

Hopefully no one else runs into this, but if you do....

Zune, Baby!

2006-12-13T20:37:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting here listening to Sour Girl by STP on my new Zune (this year's fabulous Holiday gift from Magenic). I'm on the 14 day pass right now and will definitely be doing some exploring! :)

More to come on the Zune experience...

.NET 3.0 links

2006-11-12T15:00:00.000-06:00

We're all excited that .NET 3.0 is here. Here are a few links and comments to help you out...

If you have previous versions of .NET 3.0, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do yourself and your friends a huge favor and run the Pre-released Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Uninstall Tool.

Once you've installed, the RTM link to .NET 3.0 is: here

UPDATE: 11/30/2006 : 3:11pm
Apparently i'm not the only one happy about .NET 3.0 shipping. Aaron Skonnard just posted a link of Doug and Don dancing and singing on channel 9

Code Camp 2006 - What a great day

2006-11-12T14:27:00.000-06:00

The inaugural Twin Cities Code Camp was yesterday at New Horizons of Minnesota in Edina, MN. I don't have the exact stats, but I heard there about 140 attended!

The facilities were first rate, Magenic provided plenty of pizza and soda for lunch, and the camaraderie was excellent. I saw .Net people talking to Ruby people talking to Java people; it really warmed the heart :)

I attended the following sessions:

Neil Iversen's SharePoint as a Development Platform
Jason Bock's State of Languages in the CLR
Robert Boedigheimer's Utilizing .NET Cryptography
Andy Morrison's Building Reusable Business Processes in BizTalk
(my session) Securing Web Serivces in WCF
Scot Yokiel's Intro to WCF

Being a security enthusiast, Robert's session was one of my favorites. It distilled the essence of hashing and crypto into very tidy, bite-sized pieces to digest. Grab the slides/code and check it out. Robert has a really nice demo on how to tamperproof querystrings, which Schwans.com has implemented.

The content was first rate, I got to meet a lot of people, see a lot of old friends, learned a lot (technical and about presenting) and the post-event speaker party was good clean fun as well.

Thanks again to Jason Bock for getting this started. Thanks to all of you who attended, presented and sponsored food/prizes. I'm looking forward to the next one (April 2007???)!

Some Halloween pairing wisdom from Mr. Fowler

2006-11-07T17:14:00.000-06:00

I was catching up on some blogs this afternoon and ran across this one from Martin Fowler's posted on 10/31/2006...

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/PairProgrammingMisconceptions.html

From my experience, XP/Agile has a lot to do with doing what makes sense in development and getting rid of the stuff that doesn't and if something is 'Agile', very little is mandated or else it wouldn't be very 'Agile', right? :)

I've been on teams where pairing is done. One particular project we did a lot of pair programming which turned out very nice IMHO. There were few bugs, we hit our estimates and the code was clean and well-factored. Most importantly, the client loved it and it solved a real business problem!!!

Another pairing benefit (which Mr. Fowler alludes to in his final point) is in the area of code reviews (you *ALL* do code reviews, right?). Just like documentation, security, and testing, code reviews are sadly one of the first qualities to go when a project gets behind because “there's not time to do it”, even when the reality is that “there's not time not to do it”. I see too much poor quality code get written and developers spending too much time firefighting because of hastily constructed in “heroic code“.

The final point in Mr. Fowler's post is about code smell; I have nothing to add except “RIGHT ON”! Developers constantly raise the layer of abstraction to raise productivity which is why we don't write business apps in assembly anymore. Duplicated code stinks, espically when there is a bug in it and it gets copied throughout the organization...grrr...

I think developers should give pairing more thought; if for no other reason than to reduce the chance of carpal tunnel syndrome by 50% :)

Back from darkness + CODE CAMP IS NEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-11-01T08:34:00.000-06:00

Blogging has been on the backburner for a while due to project deadlines at my current client. After AJAXifying a couple of pages, making them IE and FireFox compatible and fixing some JSON, it looks like the project is sitting in good shape, so I'll rip out a few blog posts again. :)

As Mr. Bock points out, Twin Cities Code Camp is coming up in less than 2 weeks (11/11/2006, yes that is a Saturday but come on out and build the community and/or learn something!). If building community or learning (voice of Austin Powers here) "aren't your bag baby" (back to my voice, sorry), you can at least come out and win some fabulous prizes donated by some very generous contributors.

VB 6.0 + Microsoft InteropForms Toolkit 1.0

2006-10-31T09:33:00.000-06:00

Brad Abrams posted a link to the Microsoft InteropForms Toolkit 1.0 on his blog today. This should be very helpful in gracefully pulling existing VB 6.0 resources into the .Net Framework.

Arithmetic overflows/underflows in C#; yes it is possible

2006-10-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write about this for a few weeks; better late than never!

On day 3 of Building Connected Systems, Mr. Brown mentioned that it is possible to overflow numeric variables in C#. This surprised many other students in class (myself included) as developers assume 'managed code' takes care of this like it does with array bounds checking. From my understanding, VB.NET does not allow this scenario (I have not verified this, but trust Mr. Brown's assertion)!

When I started writing this entry, I was just going to do Int32, but after expanding to other integral and float types, I noticed differing behavior in how the .NET runtime handles this scenario. So, to try this out, I fired up a C# console app Visual Studio 2005 and here's what I found:

int.MaxValue + 1 == int.MinValue (it overflows and wraps around with no exception)
uint.MaxValue + 1 == 0 (it overflows to zero since it is unsigned; no exception thrown)
float.MaxValue + 1 == float.MaxValue (yes, the runtime handles the overflow, no exception is thrown, but it behaves differently tha int and uint)
double.MaxValue + 1 == double.MaxValue (same as float)
decimal.MaxValue + 1 throws a System.OverflowException

Keith's recommended turning on overflow checking for all C# projects and then using the 'unchecked' statement if you really need to squeeze performance out of your code. (My aside on this is that if you're really writing high perf code, perhaps managed code is not the optimal tool for the job?? One of my favorite Fergesonisms (circa 1998) is: "Use the right tool for the right job".
To turn on overflow/underflow checking in your C# project:
1. Right click on your project in the Solution Explorer and select Properties
2. On the Build tab, click the Advanced button
3. Make sure "Check for arithmetic overflow/underflow" is checked

An FxCop Rule or source control checkin policy would be two good tools to build around this! :)

New metasyntactic variable or What is a Manamana?

2006-10-12T14:15:00.000-05:00

I think that Manamana would make an excellent metasyntactic variable.

If not, at least you can watch the video and get a moment of levity during your work day! :) It is highly recommended to start scrum meetings with :)

cheers
jk

Cat cloning company "Declawed"

2006-10-12T13:58:00.000-05:00

Who ever would have guessed that cat cloning is not economically viable?!?!?!?!?!

Associated Press Business News: Cat-Cloning Company to Close Its Doors - MSN Money

jk

WSSF for WCF RC1

2006-10-03T13:29:00.000-05:00

For those who missed Aaron Skonnard's post on this today, the PAG team just released the new version of the Web Service Software Factory for WCF RC1. This is the same WSSF that I was referring to on Day 2. This is just the WCF version and not the ASMX version.

jk

Time wasters for today

2006-09-29T13:32:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we all need to dis-engage the mind for a bit.

Isaac, the QA engineer on our project team, has a knack for finding fun diversions:

Line Rider
Flash laser game

cheers
jk

Lost email, culture and hiring

2006-09-26T18:51:00.000-05:00

Someone was kind enough to email from this blog after reading a post asking about Magenic culture and what it's like to work here. I apologize for not replying, but I (insert embarrassed smiley face here) lost your email.

Please feel free to send another email and I would be happy to talk to you!

This brings up a good topic; in case you're aggregating this feed and don't visit the site, Magenic is always looking for good people. Check out the Careers page for more info.

IIS 7 Resources

2006-09-25T10:33:00.000-05:00

Last week while I was in training, Eric Deily, a Program Manager on the IIS 7 team, came in to talk about the work they are doing. I tried to take good notes to pass along!

They have their own web site with code samples/demos/forums. http://www.iis.net. Eric says the product team members actively monitor and watch the forums.

There is a link to the feature matrix

There is a much better extensibility story. Developers will be able to swap in/out components. e.g. if you don't like how the static file handler works, you can write your own and replace the one that ships with IIS (via config)

That beast Metabase.xml is going away, replaced with a much better configuration UI and XML structure (much rejoicing there)

For those using PHP, there will be a module to support you

CGI is turned off by default (in the spirit of reducing your attack surface area)

It has web services exposed for remote server config (no more DCOM here) secured via Transport Layer Security (TLS/HTTPS)

Appcmd.exe will replace the admin scripts

They are VERY concerned with backwards compatibility - no web site left behind :)

Inetfino.exe is not installed unless you install the "IIS 6 management compatibility" component. This is a BIG CHANGE if you have scripts/developers who use iisreset on a regular basis.

Much more diagnostics/tracing built in. You will be able to do a dump at the app domain level if needed.

Microsoft PSS helped write more detailed error messages with suggested courses of action

You can play with this before Vista/Longhorn server comes out at http://virtuallabs.iis.net

IIS7 will NOT BE on SERVER 2003. Eric said this was a technical limitation, not a marketing one!

For Longhorn Server, the team is focusing on the server-farm scenario

Eric did a very cool demo/sample at http://iis.net of writing your own module to replace the directory browser to build a photo gallery type of feature!

Building Connected Systems - Day 5 (the last day)

2006-09-22T12:18:00.000-05:00

WOW, what a great week; this was a top-notch experience all-around!

Kudos to Pluralsight for putting on a great class. Covering this many topics in a week is a tall order but they pulled it off admirably!

The class was held at the Redmond Marriott Town Center where we received first class treatment and accommodations. I hope Pluralsight is able to keep using this location for future events. (As a bad pun, their employees were very 'service oriented') :)

Clearly, Pluralsight has some of the best instructors in the industry (which is why I wanted to come here in the first place; if you're going to spend time and money on training, it had better be good training!).

Aaron Skonnard

Keith Brown

Fritz Onion

Today, we're down to the eye-candy topics: WPF, Fritz did an AJAX demo with Atlas.

From a personal standpoint, I got to see my friend Brian (a Microsoftie) a couple times. Eric Deily from the IIS7 team came out to talk about features of IIS 7.0 which was very intresting. The IIS7 team has spent a great deal of effort in allowing you to swap in/out modules via config at a server->application level. This helps an admin pare down the server features to reduce attack surface, which is a good thing. If you want to write your own modules, you can swap out the built-in ones with your own (e.g. if you think you can build a better static content handler, go-for-it)!

Please feel free to email me (jeffk at Magenic dot com) if any of the blog posts about this week raise questions, etc...espically the areas of WCF and security!

It's fun being here in Seattle, but I'm realy looking forward to getting home again!

Building Connected Systems - Day 4

2006-09-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

Ok, my mind is oatmeal now :) but i'm going to blog about today anyway!

Keith did the Workflow ~~WWF~~ (WF) lecture and lab today. In WF:

the Activity is the main unit of execution, reuse and composition

right now, integration between WF and WCF is not a great developer experience right now (this will improve as the WF and WCF teams have merged to the Connected Systems Division)

After the WF lecture, Keith left us in the very capabable hands of Mr. Fritz Onion who led us through ASP.NET 2.0 stuff for the rest of the day (UI, Data and web parts). After 3 days of solid learning, Fritz was kind to the class and didn't beat on us too much! :)

At the end of the day, Don Smith from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices Team (PAG) came in to talk about the good work they're doing and did demo of the WCF Service Factory. I'm really looking forward to the new build of this tool which supports the RC1 of the .NET 3.0 framework! Don was a blast to listen to and I know the class was glad he came out to talk to us!

One more day! :)
jk

Building Connected Systems - Day 3

2006-09-20T18:25:00.000-05:00

Today is 'Security Day' with the esteemed Keith Brown leading the class. We talked about lots of WCF-Security stuff, and also a lot about web security.

Some of the more interesting web security things were:

The Code Room - Vegas starring Keith Brown et. all. It is a fun little poke at security on web sites and shows session hijacking and SQL injection.

Keith has an excellent set of tutorials about input validation located at http://pluralsight.com/wiki/default.aspx/Keith/InputValidationModules.html. All developers should be using these techniques to improve web site security!

Integer overflow in managed code exists in C#!!!! This suprises a lot of people (myself included). Keith recommended turning on checking at a project level, and use the 'unchecked' statment if you really need to 'squeeze' performance and bypass the overflow/underflow checking.

I got Keith to sign my copy of The .NET Developer's Guide to Windows Security (ok, a bit nerdy I admit)

The Cookies and tamper detection module is excellent!

We did a lab on input validation using regular expressions. Here is a good link to the PAG site on common regular expressions. Remember, all user input is EVIL and NOT TO BE TRUSTED!

Manageability (instrumentation) often gets overlooked in apps because we're too busy building features. However, when it comes time to debug, it is difficult to impossible to quickly find the problem. The .Net Framework makes it trivial to write to the event log and Windows performance counters and there is no reason not to do it!

My brain is full for today. Time to relax for a bit and get ready for days 4 and 5.

Building Connected Systems - Day 2

2006-09-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

Day 2 was excellent. Aaron did a demo on the Web Service Software Factory. If you have not seen this, check it out. It is something the PAG team built to help accelerate initial project creation. It creates a solution with multiple projects (web service layer, biz object layer, a mapping layer, and even some test projects). Ther is also one available for WCF, but as of this post there is no a version for RC1 available yet. I strongly encourage y'all to check this out as it seemed very useful! After that We focued on WCF concepts; contracts, serializers, behaviors and bindings. To end the day, Microsoft Connected Systems Division (think: WCF + BizTalk) Archtect Steve Swartz came in and talked about potential future directions. Some interesting comments were:

WCF is happy with SOAP or REST

MSFT is going to push more services "into the clouds": e.g. there is already a beta STS service available here

MSFT is going to try to make BizTalk more of a .Net extension and not a silo of its own.

Improve developer tools; e.g. if a developer wants to publish an RSS feed, it should be as simple as instantiating a class and 'start pumping RSS out'.

Start thinking about 'claims' in the security space. Check out Kim Cameron's blog for more information.

Autonomy is 'a' value - it is not the 'one' correct architecture value. (think: 4 tenets of SOA)

Steve was a blast to listen to; scary-smart guy!

A funny from day 2 of class

2006-09-19T14:36:00.000-05:00

"WSDL is like the sun; it's great and does a lot of good things for you, but don't look at it too long." - Aaron Skonnard

Building Connected Systems - Day 1

2006-09-18T21:34:00.000-05:00

Day 1 was good. There are only 16 people in the class (2 Microsofties, and 2 former Microsofties, myself included) which is nice for personal attention and discussion. Today we reviewed SO, Web Services and the existing technology stack (ASMX 2.0, WSE 3.0). A lot of it was just tablesetting and laying the justification groundwork for WCF, WF and BizTalk. Near the end of the day we started on some BizTalk 2006, which will flow into tomorrow (about 1 hour left of the lab). Aaron Skonnard was our instructor. I love listening to people who are passionate and knowledgable about a topic. Some of the more intresting comments were:

".Net Remoting has the least optimistic future of the communication models (ASMX, WSE, Enterprise Services, Remoting & MSMQ)"

It would be really interesting to see a WCF Channel for SQL Service Broker

The REST vs. SOAP debate: one thing in favor of SOAP is the existing tools (which is likely why Google chose SOAP for their SOAP Search API and not REST

Contract first vs. Code first for web services; typically collaberation drives contract first and smaller projects tend to migrate toward code first

I'm really looking forward to Day 2 which will cover WCF.

Early bedtime tonight! :)

jk

.NET Campsight: Building Connected Systems

2006-09-18T09:40:00.000-05:00

It begins: http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/CampsightConnectedSystems.aspx

More to come as I have time to post! :)

Foo has a name

2006-09-15T13:56:00.000-05:00

Nearly every developer has used the word 'Foo', 'Bar' etc...Apparently there is a Wikipedia entry for it: Metasyntactic variable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

jk

Twin Cities Code Camp - Nov 11, 2006

2006-09-15T08:13:00.001-05:00

The inaugural Twin Cities Code Camp will be held Nov 11, 2006. Check out the sessions here.

As of this post, 3 other Magenicons will be presenting (Jason Bock, Michael Dunn and Rocky Lhotka). I will be doing a session on using the security features of ~~Indigo~~ Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Best of all, it's FREE!!!!!! Hope to see y'all there!

jk

Twin Cities Code Camp

2006-09-14T11:47:00.000-05:00

The Twin Cities Code Camp will be Nov 11, 2006. Check out the sessions here.

I will be presenting a session on using the security features of WCF.

come one, come all!

jk

Top 10 XML specifications rejected by the W3C

2006-07-12T20:12:00.000-05:00

And oldie but a goodie :)

jk

YouTube - BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype

2006-06-30T14:08:00.000-05:00

YouTube - BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype

this is quite cool; it would be fun to try for real... :)
jk

WCF/Indigo - Change to .svc file format for .Net 3.0

2006-06-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

after installing the .Net 3.0 (winfx) components, my Indigo service stopped compiling -- i was getting a System.Web.HttpParseException on my Service.svc file...

after much hunting around for 'HttpParseException', I stumbled upon the answer searching for 'Service directive':

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=414261&SiteID=1
-- and --
http://blogs.msdn.com/madhuponduru/archive/2006/02/22/537627.aspx

Basically, change "Service" to "ServiceHost" and change "class=MyFancyIndigoService" to "Service=MyFancyIndigoService"

Mort has a hoot

2006-05-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

I doubt this was one of the persona scenarios envisioned for Mort, but apparently Mort has been busy writing a computer virus using Visual Basic (some would argue many VB programs are really viruses, but I digress; I've written plenty VB code myself!).

This virus reinforces that the biggest security risk is often from the inside!

jk

Microsoft password checker - misinformation

2006-04-24T08:29:00.000-05:00

The blog entry at http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1285 has some bad information that needs to be corrected regarding Microsoft's recently published password strength checker.

In this blog post, the autor states:

GOOD it's a java applet that appears to run locally so your password is never sent over the internet

This is clearly NOT a Java applet if you take a cursory peek the HTML source! The password input button named 'pc001' has an event handler named 'onKeyUp' which calls a JavaScript method named EvalPwdStrength. This method is downloaded from here.

I notified SANS of the misinformation and requested a correction be published. I guess this is a good reminder that you can't believe everything you read on the internet; even from a popular site such as SANS (including my blog too!) :)

I agree with the SANS author's assertion that typing your passwords into a web page, no matter where it's hosted, is a bad idea. Just follow the guidelines and you'll have strong passwords.

If you have trouble remembering lots of strong passwords, try using a password manager program such as:

>Password Minder by Keith Brown of Pluralsight

>Password Safe by Bruce Schneier of Counterpane

cheers
jk

The lamest phishing attempt I've seen yet

2006-04-20T21:17:00.000-05:00

I recieved an email today that apparently was some kind of phishing attempt. Yes, the "=20" were acutally part of the message.... :)


Dear Customer,
 
Your current login & password = combination are=20 out of date.
To renew please click Reply and get back to us with the=20 following information:
Your Name, Account Number, Login and=20 Password.
 
Regards,
National City=20 Support

banner ads are getting very specific

2006-04-19T14:24:00.000-05:00

Maybe someday it will be specific enough to say:

"Meet single female baseball fans, with runners in scoring postition, a lefty on the mound, and during day games". crazy...

jk

Spielberg to design 2008 Olympic ceremonies

2006-04-19T14:19:00.000-05:00

oh great, maybe he will add drama and pageantry like "E.T. Win Gooooolllllllllddddd"

jk

Some nice "running as non-admin" links

2006-04-17T20:47:00.000-05:00

I was having trouble editing the power settings on my work laptop (running as non Administrator, non Power User).

So, firing up my trusy browser and favorite search engine resulted in a lot of nice links that I wanted to share.

Managing Power Options as a non-administrator

Temporary admin for your limited user account

Changing the system date, time and/or time zone (I feel less strongly about this one, but posted in case it was helpful)

and of course the granddaddy of posts:
Item 9: How to develop code as a non admin

Doing this requires some learning and some dicipline. There is a registry hack if you want to get Flash to work properly (i'll post that link sometime when i find it again).

jk

Edit 4/18/2006 12:56pm:

oops, forgot another granddaddy: Mr. Howard's Non-admin best practices in Windows XP

apologies to Mr. Howard :)
jk

Paypal Phishing Phake toolbar

2006-04-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

yes, i know Phake is not a word. :)

Seriously, I see the phishing artists are hard at work with new ideas to trick people.

Tonight I received an email in my Junk Mail from "PayPal" which was clearly a phake. This is not new, we've all received emails like this.

I always like to open the phake link to see how accurate it looks compared to the real site. The interesting thing to note about this phishing site is they hid the real address bar and put in a simulated address bar textbox (the dropdown even sort of works on it).

In the picture below, the toolbar on the top with the address "http://0xd35bda31" is the 'real' toolbar (I right clicked and re-displayed the toolbar) and the toolbar with the "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run" is the phake toolbar.

Is having a removable toolbar in IE really worth it? (I don't have FireFox installed, so I can't test it to see what it does on there. Maybe one of my loyal readers could do that and comment?). Web sites have long been able to hide/show the address and menu bars. Should my browser really allow some random website to voliate my boundries like this? One way to remedy this would be for browsers to create an option to override the ability for script to hide/show menu and address bars.

These types of phishing pages will only get more sophisticated and confusing. Please IE/FireFox, help protect users from this type of deception!

Here is the phake phishing link (PLEASE DON'T GIVE THEM ANY USEFUL INFO!)

Here is the screenshot of the browser with the phake toolbar:

I hope phishing is not good!

cheers
jk

A new kind of pop-up (meta-popup?)

2006-04-14T23:37:00.000-05:00

I was poking around Monster.com tonight and ran across the link to post jobs on.

Of course, there is a popup which my trusty Google toolbar popup blocker stops, but then I get this window...

Yeah, like I'm planning on 'unblocking' popup windows...no matter how nicely they ask!

jk

2005 Taxes Complete!

2006-04-07T20:57:00.000-05:00

wooooo whoooo!

enough said
jk

Improving credential collection, one site at a time

2006-04-04T13:59:00.000-05:00

I recently opened a savings account at ING Direct. I was impressed with the login screen.

The first time I hit the page, it asked for:

Customer number

First 5 digits of my mailing zip code

And my pin, transcribed visually into letters (see the picture, it is worth 1000 words!)

The second time I hit the page (F5 - refresh), it asked for:

Customer number

4 year digit of my birth date

And my pin, transcribed visually into letters, but using a different set of letters corresponding to each number (again, see the picture!)

After a few more refreshes, it asked for:

First 4 digits of SSN

Last 4 digits of SSN

First 3 digits of SSN

Last 3 digits of SSN

True, if you know my customer number, birthday and SSN i'm still pretty much out of luck, but at least the pin transposition along with the different credentials combinations could help slow down an automated attack vector!

All that plus a better rate on my savings account! :)

cheers
jk

2 year old Identity theft

2006-04-04T12:29:00.000-05:00

Apparently even innocent children are victims of identity theft per this MSNBC article.

It’s a practice that often victimizes innocent people, like 2-year-old Tyler Lybbert of Draper, Utah. She doesn't understand that she's got some serious credit problems.

"She's basically got two loans out on her Social Security number and, I believe, a credit card out," says Tyler’s mother, Camber Lybbert. "She's got $15,000 in debt."

This article goes on to discuss illegal immigration, but to me ID theft is a separate issue. True, illegal immigrants are going to want to obtain false identities, but there are thieves who are legal US citizens and there are thieves from other countries who don't even have to set foot in the US to steal someone's identity.

I wish there was an easy answer to this, but there isn't (or it would have already been fixed). The best countermeasure right now is vigilance I guess. :(

jk

Straight and long

2006-04-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

The golf season in MN is FINALLY here. I played my first round of the year Sat (no, not an April fools joke) at Valley View Golf Course in Belle Plaine. It was 51 degrees, cloudy and little wind, so playing conditions were very nice for April!

My first teeshot was, in fact, straight and long. My faithful blog readers know which club I hit it with, and I still love that driver!

I shot in the mid 80's which didn't dissapoint me; first round of the year typically doesn't come w/ many lofty expectations! I'm more pleased with "NO THREE PUTTS" for the round!

One of my playing companions hit a ball from the teebox into a garbage can on a different teebox, which I've never seen before! I skipped my teeshot across the ice on the 18th hole onto the fairway! Try that in Florida, baby!

The season is here. I believe the official scoring season sanctioned by the MGA is 4/15 so this was a 'free' round for my handicap.

I have no intention of blogging about each round, but figured the 1st one was noteworthy!

Fore!
jk

Why is MSN IM such a memory pig?

2006-03-24T14:55:00.000-06:00

I had Task Manager up checking memory usage and noticed the msnmsgr.exe using roughly 55MB, which suprised me.

So, I terminated and restarted the process and it started up to 33MB!

It seems like this app should use a smaller footprint...

jk

PGATOUR.com - LIVE@17

2006-03-23T10:00:00.000-06:00

There is no hole quite like the 17th at the TPC - Sawgrass. Check it out!

100k Windows Media link

300k Windows Media link

Fore!
jk

Golf 2006 - can't wait

2006-03-22T09:08:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's the worst time of the year in MN; cold enough to have some snow, but warm enough to start dreaming of getting back out on to the links!

TwinCitiesGolf.com is again posting the Golf Courses Open in Minnesota.

Fore!

jk

I want this!

2006-03-21T16:12:00.000-06:00

Kingston Technology Company - Press Releases - Kingston Introduces Industry's First Fully Secure USB Drive Specifically Targeted for Enterprise Use

Nice :) 'nuff said

jk

Feds Again Score Low on IT Security

2006-03-21T12:23:00.000-06:00

While looking through the 2005 U.S. government's security report card, it is concerning that ANY agency should get an F, much less agencies like these that are critical to the function of the country!!!

Department of Defense

Department of Homeland Security

Department of the Interior

Department of State

oh, and kudos to the Treasury and Commerce departments on their D- and D+ grades respectively.

More information about scoring methodology and the hearing in general is available here.

Thanks Computerworld Security for catching my eye on this....

jk

Schneier on Security: Basketball Prank

2006-03-16T22:00:00.000-06:00

Here's an excellent story that Mr. Bock found on Bruce Schneier's blog.

It gives a whole new meaning to "March Madness" :)

Social engineering is still quite effective, alive, and well!

cheers
jk

Qwest Voice Mail setting is unsecured

2006-03-16T15:49:00.000-06:00

I've had Qwest voice mail for a number of years now (probably around 10). I've always had it set to ring 4 times before going over to voice mail; 4 is a pretty reasonable number of rings IMHO.

Recently, the phone would ring 2 times and then go to voice mail, making for numerous missed calls (some of which were telemarketers, so i didn't mind THAT much). Obviously, someone or some interal Qwest system changed that value from 4 to 2 for me as I didn't even know how to change it.

I finally got tired of sprinting to the telephone to pick it up before 2 rings, so I searched Qwest for the answer on how to change this voice mail setting and came up with the answer.

So, I called 800-669-7676 per the instructions, entered in only my telephone number and chose the number of rings (2-8 is allowed). Reread the last sentence. Notice how I did NOT need to type in my account password, last 4 digits of my social or use my account code (as found on my monthly statement).

Just to be sure I didn't make sure I didn't 'miss' something, I tried again and again was able to change my voice mail settings w/o providing any real authentication credentials.

THE SYSTEM ALLOWS ANYONE TO CHANGE ANYONE ELSE'S VOICE MAIL SETTINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

From a privacy/security standpoint, this annoyed me, so I called 800-669-7676 again, punched the zero key a whole bunch of times so I could actually talk to someone, and asked about this. The response I received is that since the number of rings for voice mail is a low priority thing, that "it is unnecessary" to secure it. I asked if the changes were logged (because I wanted to find out when my account got changed from 4 to 2 rings) but that information was unavailable. Ok, I grant you the value of the asset in question here (# of rings) is low, but it is just the premise here that is troubling:

1) Why can someone change my account settings w/o my authorization
and
2) what other systems does Qwest have that allow similiar changes?

One of my friends suggested how easy it would be to build a war dialer and randomly change people's voice mail rings daily. As I found out, 2 rings is akin to mini-DoS attack!

So, I'm hoping that if this information becomes public, it will cause a change at Qwest, and hopefully not spawn an epidemic of random voice mail ringer changes!

jk

Free CDs highlight security weaknesses - Computerworld

2006-03-14T12:14:00.000-06:00

Free CDs highlight security weaknesses - Computerworld

Even a low tech scam like this was 75% effective! "While the front of the CD contained a written warning to users to check their company's internal security guidelines before running the CD, as many as 75 of the 100 CDs were played."

People are still the weakest link in security: "The experiment underscores what experts say is the weakest point for IT security: people. While many companies have policies and make their employees sign legally binding documents with rules of use for company computers, it's doubtful users get specific training on why those rules are in place, Chapman said."

Forewarned is forearmed I guess...

BTW, if people are giving out free Milli Vanilli CDs, that is also a dead giveaway that it contains 'very bad things' :)

cheers
jk

Google makes a funny

2006-03-06T13:54:00.000-06:00

For googles (I mean giggles) I Googled for the word maps. My assumption was Google Maps would come up as the first search result; apparently my assumption was incorrect...LOL

cheers and happy mapping
jk

Xbox.com | Xbox 360 - Original Xbox Games on Xbox 360

2006-02-25T23:01:00.000-06:00

Xbox.com | Xbox 360 - Original Xbox Games on Xbox 360

a link for me so i don't have to Google for it all the time

Hopefully there will be more on this list soon!
jk

Waterfall 2006 - International Conference on Sequential Development

2006-02-25T10:21:00.000-06:00

Waterfall 2006 - International Conference on Sequential Development

A coworker (PeteS) forwarded this through our technical email list and it was too funny not to post :)

My favorite is wordUnit

hope to see y'all there! :)

jk

A good, good day

2006-02-15T22:13:00.000-06:00

It was a good, good day today.

I (re)started at Magenic Technologies on 2/6/2006 and am very happy to be back! Lots of friendly faces that I knew from before, and lots of friendly new faces as well!

1. I became billable again this afternoon for a client in downtown Minneapolis. I will be building web services (ASMX & WSE 2.0 currently) in an SO environment. The project is really cool and is a great fit for me. Plus, there is just something cool about working downtown Minneapolis!

2. I got an XBOX 360 today, which is perfect timing as I sent my old XBOX in for repairs (DVD drive failing; can't read discs anymore). The new dashboard is cool and the wireless controller is very nice. I don't have any games yet (the only backwards compatible game I have is Namco Museum). I downloaded Gauntlet (yes, the Atari game circa 1985) to play which was quite nostalgic! :) I'm looking forward to picking up another controller and perhaps a few games for the new console so I can make better use of the hardware than playing 21 year old coin-op games like Gauntlet, heh heh...

My gamer tag is snk13.

see you online!
jk (snk13)

Indigo Gotcha #2 was : WCF Config file intellisense... why hath thou forsake me?

2006-01-31T16:21:00.000-06:00

Thank goodness for IntelliCrack, espically for new technologies whose help files are skimpy to non-existent a la Indigo/WCF

I was having the same issue as Bryan, and by changing

<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">

to

<configuration>

allowed vs.net 2k5 to start displaying IntelliCrack again.

Note: I am not complaining, but rather am thankful for schema. XSD is love. ;)

jk

btw, IntelliCrack was my very first Wikipedia contribution! It is fun to contribute, albeit something silly...

Indigo gotcha #1

2006-01-31T09:29:00.000-06:00

In working with Indigo (Jan CTP), if you try to generate metadata (WSDL, XSD) from an assembly, make sure it is a dll and not an exe, or you get a misleading error message like:

C:\Projects\Indigo>svcutil.exe "C:\Projects\Indigo\bin\Debug\MyIndigo.exe"
Microsoft (R) Service Model Metadata Tool
[Microsoftr .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.129]
c Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Error: There was an error exporting the ContractDescription loaded from the type: Foo.IBarService, MyIndigo, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
Duplicate contract QNames are not supported.
Another ContractDescription with the Name: IBarService and Namespace: http://services.foo.com/bar/v1 has already been exported.

This happened when I was writing a self-hosted service using a console application and for ease of initial development included the service, message and data contracts in the self-hosted service. I really wanted to get the WSDL out of the service so I could tweak it (that is a whole other post).

Long story short, I changed the project from a console application to a class library and reran svcutil.exe and all was well in Indigo-land again:

C:\Projects\Indigo>svcutil "C:\Projects\Indigo\bin\Debug\MyIndigo.dll"
Microsoft (R) Service Model Metadata Tool
[Microsoftr .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.129]
c Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Generating Metadata Files...
C:\Projects\Indigo\services.foo.com.bar.v1.wsdl
C:\Projects\Indigo\schemas.microsoft.com.2003.10.Serialization.xsd
C:\Projects\Indigo\services.foo.com.bar.v1.xsd

If this post saves even 1 person some debugging time, it was worth it! :)

I'm glad Indigo is (almost) here!

jk

The Amazing Message Plant! (and Monkey phone call)

2006-01-24T10:29:00.001-06:00

I heard about the The Amazing Message Plant! on the 93X half-a**ed morning show on my drive in this morning. Right now, there are only stock messages, but when they get the custom message feature added, can you even imagine the possibilities?

In a similar genre, Glen was showing us http://www.monkeyphonecall.com/. This site is powered by actual SM2C technology "(simulated monkey to consumer)" to make the magic happen. Again, quite amazing :)

I hope this brightens your day as it has mine :)

jk

My first 'real' win!

2005-11-30T23:44:00.000-06:00

I won my first $5.00 + $0.50 sit-n-go tonight at Bodog.com. winner takes 50% of pot ($25), 2nd takes 30% and 3rd takes 20%. It was a nice little boost to the bankroll.

At the risk of making this sound like a poker commercial:

I'm snk13 @ bodog.com. Come play with me! :)

cheers
jk

Microsoft Office Marketplace: Comodo Free Email Certificate

2005-11-22T12:37:00.000-06:00

Comodo is giving away free email certificates to use in signing and encrypting emails.

they are good for roughly a year. i havn't published mine anyplace yet, but probably should to promote PKI :)

jk

In the money!!!

2005-11-18T22:51:00.000-06:00

I just finished 24th in the 9pm PokerChamps freeroll tourney #4948. 1500 players, $35 prize pool, places 4-28 all get $1.

The turning point was where I had 8 2 unsuited in the big blind with $1500 in chips left, blinds were $2000/$4000. The flop came 8 2 8!!!!!!! I went all in and pulled down a $35,000 pot, which was enough to get me in the money!

$1 will not get me too far in online poker. I might try to play a low stakes ring game to see if i can scrape together $2.20 to play in a 10 person sit-n-go.

All in baby!
jk

GotFocus()?

2005-11-15T21:13:00.000-06:00

I always have to look for this code, so i'm posting it here so i know where it is :)

from http://www.syncfusion.com/FAQ/WindowsForms/FAQ_c41c.aspx#q1021q

jk

----------------------------------------------------
How do I get hold of the currently focused Control?

The .Net framework libraries do not provide you an API to query for the focused Control. You have to invoke a windows API to do so:

 
[C#] 
public class MyForm : Form 
{ 
   [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention=CallingConvention.Winapi)] 
internal static extern IntPtr GetFocus(); 

private Control GetFocusedControl() 
{ 
   Control focusedControl = null; 

   // To get hold of the focused control: 
   IntPtr focusedHandle = GetFocus(); 

   // Note that if the focused Control is not a .Net control, 
   //then this will return null.
   if(focusedHandle != IntPtr.Zero) 
      focusedControl = Control.FromHandle(focusedHandle); 
    
   return focusedControl; 
} 
}

Meet Your Deadlines with These Tips

2005-11-15T20:56:00.000-06:00

Mork pointed out to me the other day, #4 and #5 are sometimes hard to do! :)

Read the article here

jk

Indigo Beta 1 to WCF Sept CTP changes (from David Pallmann's Blog)

2005-11-13T16:48:00.000-06:00

Making the jump from Indigo Beta1 to WCF Sep 05 CTP release

As with any prerelease, there have been changes, so watch out when you're working w/ the code examples from Programming "Indigo"

enjoy!

jk

Fun with List

2005-11-09T13:30:00.000-06:00

I didn't see a method in the 2.0 dotnet framework to 'AddRange' or adapt an IList into a List, so this was the result...

enjoy :)

jk


public List< T > ConvertListToListT< T >(System.Collections.IList list)
{
   List< T > ret = new List< T >();
   foreach (T o in list)
   {
      ret.Add(o);
   }
   return ret;
}

Programmers are optimists (well, most anyway)

2005-11-09T08:55:00.000-06:00

I ran across the 'GodObject' anti-pattern http://perldesignpatterns.com/?GodObject and saw this quote which seemed worth repeating regarding development in general:

Programmers are optimists. We assume that each feature in the specification
for a project can be added in a constant amount of time even as the code grows,
and we add each new feature just like we added the last. In other words, that
programs are completed in linear time. The last half, recursively, takes twice
as long.

This is very easy to lose track of when estimating, espically on a large system. If this post even saves one developer from an unnecessary late night (or nights) then it has done its job :)

jk

CTP Madness

2005-11-05T01:40:00.000-06:00

I ran across this link tonight and found it useful. (Thanks Channel 9!).

http://channel9.msdn.com/ctpmadness/Default.aspx

It can tell what versions of .net 2.0/Whidbey/WCF/WPF you have installed, which versions are compatible, and which are retired.

For those still looking at WCF and WPF this should still be of use.

It was really helpful for me getting Indigo installed on my VPC!

jk

Home page setting changes unexpectedly, or you cannot change your home page setting

2005-10-08T15:30:00.000-05:00

How many times has this happened to you :)

I have a reg file and batch file ready for this if anyone wants it....

jk

Wolves + Vegas = 200K fine???????

2005-08-30T22:44:00.000-05:00

Ok, I hardly think a non-official team trip to Vegas, pulled together by KG qualifies as a team practice. I'll bet Mr. Taylor (Owner) would be quite happy to pay the 200k fine if it helps the team gel and start building some chemistry. I bet KG would pay it himself too!

Now, I wonder if the team won enough money to cover the fine? :)

Here's the link...

jk

Nanotechnology

2005-08-19T09:43:00.000-05:00

Nanotechnology - I can't add anything intelligent so read the article :)

jk

FAQ about PGP messaging

2005-08-16T19:55:00.000-05:00

This was an excellent bit of text PGP messaging.

What it is, what it's for, and why you'd use it
“Pretty Good Privacy” (PGP) is a scheme used to encrypt or sign messages. There are other schemes for the same thing, but this one is freely available for various different types of computer systems. It works by using secret and public key pairs, you pass out your public key and keep your secret key, and so does anyone else that you communicate with (they pass out their public keys, and keep their private keys). All the keys, in combination, are used to encrypt messages (your own private keys, and each other's public keys), and all of them are required to decrypt them (you send a message encrypted with your private key and their public key, and they decrypt it with your public key and their private key). This way, no outsider can decrypt the material (because they don't have anybody's private keys).

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Ernie!

2005-08-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

I had heard that golfer Ernie Els had injured is knee on vacation, but did not hear that it was a ruptured Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) (http://www.ernieels.com/show_story.asp?ontheroad_id=205#current).

From the link above, it sounds like Ernie has already had surgery, and having had the same injury and surgery, my heart (and busted ACL) goes out to Ernie on this. Rupturing your ACL is a nasty, nasty thing. I wish Ernie the best of luck and a speedy recovery. Chills go up my spine (not in a good way mind you!) even thinking about rupturing an ACL.

Go get 'em Big Easy!

cheers
jk

Dating Design Patterns

2005-08-02T08:46:00.000-05:00

Wow, I really can't add much to this; the "Trojan Proxy" says it all.

Dating Design Patterns

cheers

jk

Congrats to Lefty and Goosen

2005-07-25T23:40:00.000-05:00

Congrats to the boys for their performance at The Battle of the Bridges tonight. It was fun to watch!

Speaking of Phil, I just saw this link on espn's site. It's an article talking about how to hit a shot backwards...most of us just worry about hitting it forwards.... :)

Fore!

jk

New toy

2005-07-19T20:32:00.000-05:00

Callaway Golf Woods: Big Bertha Titanium 454 Driver, The world's longest driver

I upgraded my equipment today by replacing Great Big Bertha Hawkeye 10deg with a Big Bertha 454 10deg (both stiff shaft).

I got it at Golf Galaxy (Bloomington) . I was hitting balls in their station that had a launch monitor hooked up to it so i could see swing speed, ball speed, spin rate, launch angle, smash factor and distance (both carry and total). This allowed me to try multiple brands/models and see what i hit the best and gave some analytics behind it!

Not surprisingly, the one i liked best (the 454) was the one that performed the best for me and 'felt' right. I'm looking forward to getting out and hitting it! Guess i'll be late to work tomorrow! :)

fore!
jk

TODO

2005-07-15T10:19:00.000-05:00

I think the CLR team should add support for the keyword TODO to the language. TODO seems to be strewn about my code these days, and it would save me from having to comment it out all the time. TODO == noop?

Maybe a macro would do it?

jk

They Write the Right Stuff

2005-07-15T09:56:00.000-05:00

This is one of my personal favorites...

This is not a case for agile development, but definitely a case for applying more science and discipline to the development process.

They Write the Right Stuff

Quotables:

-- "Software may power the post-industrial world, but the creation of software remains a pre-industrial trade. According to SEI's studies, nearly 70% of software organizations are stuck in the first two levels of SEI's scale of sophistication: chaos, and slightly better than chaos. "

-- Software for Grown-Ups
"Shipping hell continued today. Grind, grind, grind. We'll never make it. Have I said that already? Why do we always underestimate our shipping schedules? I just don't understand. In at 9:30 AM; out at 11:30 PM Dominos for dinner. And three diet Cokes."

-- "squeezing too much heroic code writing into too little time..."

Only 3 diet cokes, what lightweights. I'm in for 3 diet cokes by 10am; not necessarily a good thing, but true nonetheless............

enjoy

jk

Displaying a context (popup) menu at the proper location

2005-07-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

I can never find this code when i need it, so i'm reposting it here. My particluar needs were around dynamically creating a context menu on a listview control in the proper location.

from http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/5/26434.aspx

Courtesy of Mr. Eric Gunnerson (MSFT)


// right click with treeview doesn't set the selected item. This handler
// does...
private void treeView1_MouseUp(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs e)
{
   if (e.Button == MouseButtons.Right)
   {
      treeView1.SelectedNode = treeView1.GetNodeAt(e.X, e.Y);
      if (treeView1.SelectedNode == null)
      {
         Console.WriteLine("null");
      }
      
      // Convert from tree coordinates to screen coordinates, and then back
      // to form coordinates so that the context menu pops up at the right spot...
      Point spot = this.PointToClient(treeView1.PointToScreen(new Point (e.X, e.Y)));
      this.contextMenu1.Show(this, spot);
   }
}

Stealing Wi-Fi

2005-07-11T15:43:00.000-05:00

State: Wi-Fi cloaks a new breed of intruder

I'm not saying whether I've done this or not, but how many of my loyal readers have done this or know of someone who has? There seems to be a large ethical and legal issue to resolve. Smells like a supreme court case to me.

Is using an unsecured Wi-Fi with out 'implied concent' e.g. being a customer at an establishment offering free Wi-Fi, the crime? Is the crime just stupidity for having an unsecured network?

The anology of leaving your house unlocked and trusting people to do the right thing comes to mind here. If you leave your house unlocked and someone comes in and takes something then it is a crime.

What if municipal Wi-Fi takes off and my trusty wireless adapter finds and switches to a stronger signal that I have not been given concent to use?

Comments?

jk

Guilty as charged :(

2005-07-06T20:14:00.000-05:00

You Arent Gonna Need It

PopupTest - test your popup blocker software and download software

2005-07-06T19:24:00.000-05:00

PopupTest - test your popup blocker software and download software

I just ran across this site and thought it was interesting. I'm running IE (latest) and Google toolbar. When I get a chance, I'll try opera and firefox on it to see how they fare...

jk

SDN - The SAP Developer Network

2005-07-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

In case anyone's VS.NET gets upset about not being able to load the wizards to add a class, form, etc... (*.vsz files), I found an answer on the SAP site of all places :)

SDN - The SAP Developer Network

In case the link above ever goes away, here is the post that got it done for me. I was not using a new beta of anything, but something monkeyed with my registry...hmmm

jk

Posting follows here:
--------------------------------------------------------

Reiner Hille-Doering

Posts: 576
Registered: 2/14/04
Re: Could not run the Wizard - Beta 2.0
Posted: Aug 4, 2004 3:37 AM Reply E-mail this post

Hm, might be that there is something broken with the .NET Connector or Visual Studio installation.
Please try uninstalling NCo. Then make sure that no rests of it are left in "c:\Program Files\SAP", "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2003\Common7\IDE" and GAC are left and reinstall.

If reinstallation NCo doesn't help,
you might try the following commands from the VS command prompt:

"devenv /resetskippkgs"

regasm "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies\VSLangProj.dll"

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\vcpackages\csproj.dll"

(All commands are not critical and just reregister some entries in the registry.)

My new favorite web site!

2005-06-29T10:32:00.000-05:00

BugMeNot.com

The one for the Fargo Forum was pretty funny....:)

jk

Old School VSS - OLE automation w/ VSS circa 1995

2005-06-22T08:48:00.000-05:00

in searching for vss info this morning, I ran across this link. maybe i'll be inspired to write a vss addin? :)
jk

C# tip of the night

2005-06-22T00:21:00.000-05:00


IList list = new ArrayList();
list.Add("the only item in my list");

for(int i = 0; i < list.Count; i++)
{
   Console.WriteLine(list[i].ToString()); //using the variable 'i' is goodness
   Console.WriteLine(list[1].ToString()); //erroneously using the number 1 instead of 'i' is not goodness
}

jk