How to share Windows 7 folders with anonymous access including registry fix

I found very interesting forum thread describing how to share Windows 7 folder to other machines without password protection. It includes a few registry tricks to unlock that feature, that might had been set by Anti-virus software. http://www.acryan.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2269

How to concatenate row data into string using SQL

Very simple way to achieve this is to use FOR XML statement. The result of the following example is list of user names including first and last name separated by commas.

SELECT FirstName+' '+LastName+', ' FROM UserProfile FOR XML PATH('')

But the result string ends with a comma and space. We can either remove it by SUBSTR or REPLACE functions. Using REPLACE as it is shown below saves the usage of subquery or calcualtion of the length of the same expression.

SELECT
REPLACE((REPLACE((REPLACE(
(SELECT FirstName+' '+LastName FROM UserProfile FOR XML PATH('A'))
,'</A><A>',', '))
, '</A>',''))
,'<A>','')

Here is another way to achieve this which might be convinient in stored procedures.

DECLARE @Names VARCHAR(8000)
set @Names=''
SELECT @Names = @Names + CASE WHEN @Names<>''
THEN ', ' ELSE '' END + Name
FROM Users
SELECT @Names

How to use Visual Studio build events to copy output file to multiple destinations (projects)

Calling predefined batch file:
call MyBatchFile.bat

using command line macros:
Ex. copy "$(TargetDir)*.*" "$(SolutionDir)sitename\Bin"

list of macros find here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/42x5kfw4.aspx

Solution on "HTTP Error 414 Request URI too long" error using getJSON

The explanation of 414 error is described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/248061

With regard to JSON queries with jQuery this basically means we are not able to use long GET parameters. But for sure this is necessary for sending bigger objects serialized as JSON.
The solution would be using POST requests, but is jQuery support that?

The answer is yes if we just extend jQuery with post requests as it is described in jQuery forum:
http://forum.jquery.com/topic/getjson-using-post

jQuery.extend({
postJSON: function( url, data, callback) {
return jQuery.post(url, data, callback, "json");
}
});

Then just replace getJSON with postJSON where it is needed.

IIS Url Rewriting - avoid repeat of querystring parameters

Using the URL rewriting mechanism of IIS causes repeat of querystring parameters on every postback, because it builds the postaback url (rewrites url) by appending the querystring to current url.

Actual url:

/product.aspx?type=hats

Rewritten url:

/product/hats

Rewritten url after postback:

/product/hats?type=hats

which is actually equal to /product.aspx?type=hats&type=hats

So the type value is "hats,hats".

To avoid repeat of querystring variables simply check if the url is already rewritten:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL"]) )

{

form1.Action = Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL"];

}

}

Detailed description:

http://blogs.iis.net/ruslany/archive/2008/10/23/asp-net-postbacks-and-url-rewriting.aspx

SQL Server Express and IIS: Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to failure in retrieving the user's local application data path.

SQL Express user instancing fails with the default IIS 7.x configuration. To solve this you can do the following:

1. Create new application pool in IIS
2. Open Application Pool Advanced settings
3. Change Identity from ApplicationPoolIdentity to NETWORK SERVICE and confirm
4. Change the application pool that the web application belongs to by opening Advanced setting of the web application

3 ways to get date in SQL without time

Here are 3 ways of getting date-only part of timestamp in SQL Server:

1. DATEADD( DAY, 0 , DATEDIFF(DAY,0, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP) )

2. CONVERT( datetime, FLOOR(CONVERT(float(24), GETDATE())) )

3. CAST( CONVERT(CHAR(8), GETDATE(),112) as DATETIME)

Strip time from javascript date object

Setting up the hours to zero does the trick:

var myDate = new Date(); //current date and time
myDate.setHours(0,0,0,0);

Passing Parameters to .NET Web Service as a Query String (GET Method) or POST Request

First of all the way of passing parameters must be defined in web.config as follows:

<system.web>
<webServices>
<protocols>
<add name="HttpGet"/>
<add name="HttpPost"/>
</protocols>
</webServices>
</system.web>

Then the URL of the web service may include parameters as query string.
http://tempuri.org/webservice.asmx/MethodCaseSensitive?parameter1=yes&parameter2=123

MethodCaseSensitive is the name of web method to be performed as part of the webservice called webservice.asmx.


In case you need POST method of sending parameters just use a form and text fields as in the following example:

<form name="input" action="http://tempuri.org/webservice.asmx/MethodCaseSensitive" method="post">
<input name="parameter1" type="text">
<input name="parameter2" type="text">
<input value="Submit" type="submit">
</form>

Both of methods return XML response as it is defined in the web method.

The Web Service results can be easily checked using the .NET ability for integrated passing of parametersin a web interface:
http://tempuri.org/webservice.asmx?op=MethodCaseSensitive

The screen allows the user to enter web service parameters and submit them. The result is the same.

ASP.NET Page Life Cycle, event order, master page, page and control events order

    PAGE: Page.OnPreInit()
        USER CONTROL: UserControl.OnInit()
MASTER PAGE: MasterPage.OnInit()
    PAGE: Page.OnInit()
    PAGE: Page.OnInitComplete()
    PAGE: Page.OnLoad()
MASTER PAGE: MasterPage.OnLoad()
        USER CONTROL: UserControl.OnLoad()
    PAGE: Page.OnLoadComplete()
           Page Event Handlers
    PAGE: Page.OnPreRender()
MASTER PAGE: MasterPage.OnPreRender()
        USER CONTROL: UserControl.OnPreRender()
    PAGE: Page.OnPreRenderComplete()
    PAGE: Page.OnSaveStateComplete()
        USER CONTROL: UserControl.OnUnload()
MASTER PAGE: MasterPage.OnUnload()
     PAGE: Page.OnUnload()

More information here:
ASP.NET Page Life Cycle

How to add custom shortcuts in Save / Open dialogs on Windows Vista

1. Start Group Policy Editor by starting gpedit.msc
2. Navigate to:
User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Explorer -> Common Open File Dialog
3. Open "Items displayed in Place Bar"
4. Enter appropriate paths for you shortcuts

The changes take effect immediately.

Stop a postback by javascript with IE7

Somehow the statement javascritpt:return false; doesnt work with IE 7. But there is a workaround by setting the event.returnValue to false.

OnClientClick="javascript:event.returnValue=false; return false;"

Minifying javascript source files.

I just want to recommend you a very simple tool called JSMin, which helps minifying the javascript sources. This code improvement significantly decreases the download time because of the smaller page size. The toll successfully removes whitespaces and comments which are not needed on client side.

The tool is available as a script or a console application.

The usage of jsmin.exe is simple:
jsmin.exe output.js

Javascript Query String

The query string is reachable through window.location.search property. Splitting it by & gives you list of passed GET parameters.

function GetPageParameter(param) {
var query ='';
if (window.location.search.length>3){
//removes '?' from the query string
query = window.location.search.substring(1);
}else{
return '';
}
params = query.split("&");
for (i=0;i1){
if (pair[0] == param) {
return pair[1];
}
}else{
return '';
}
}
return '';
}

var value = GetPageParameter("value");

How to fix a WebClient timeout issue

The issue occurs when the time for generating the whole response of a WebClient request is longer than the default timeout (2 minutes / 60000 miliseconds) . So the solution is to increase this timout value. The WebClient class doesn't have such property or method, so you have 2 possibilities:

1. Use HttpWebRequest instead of WebClient and set its timeout by ReadWriteTimeout property. Of course the usage of this class is more complex than WebClisnt's one but it gives you more flexibility.

2. Make a derived class (wrapper) , which willset the timeout propery of the base class of the WebClient.

public class MyWebClient: WebClient
{
   //time in milliseconds
    private int timeout;
   public int Timeout
   {
           get {
               return timeout;
           }
           set {
               timeout = value;
           }
    }

    public MyWebClient()
    {
           this.timeout = 60000;
    }

     public MyWebClient(int timeout)
    {
           this.timeout = timeout;
    }

    protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri address)
     {
           var result = base.GetWebRequest(address);
           result.Timeout = this.timeout;
           return result;
    }
}

The usage is pretty much the same as the WebClient's usage but we have to specify the new timeout in the constructor or by setting the Timeout property:

MyWebClient wClient = new MyWebClient(1800000);
          
UTF8Encoding objUTF8 = new UTF8Encoding();

try
    {               
           byte[] data = wClient.DownloadData(url);

           File.WriteAllBytes(
             System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + @"\files\output.xls", data);

           wClient = null;
           objUTF8 = null;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
          objWebClient = null;
          objUTF8 = null;

}

As you see this timeout property solves the problems by client side. The server response should also have longer timeout for generating the response. It is set by machine.config or web.config - httpRuntime section. Note that the timeout in web.config is specified in seconds.