This sample shows you how to load a background image from a file, add some text to the image using ASP.NET's graphics capabilities, and serve the resulting image to a browser.
As always seems to happen this time of year, I find myself wondering where the year went. Our faithful readers will probably recall that my usual reaction to this feeling is to take a few minutes out of the hectic holday season to look back and highlight some of the best content we published this year. So without any further ado... here's ASP 101's year in review for 2008.
Did you know that you can register a custom server or user control in your web.config file and use it throughout your application without the need for the <%@ Register %> directive at the top of each page?
The default configuration of ASP.NET's machineKey element works great on a single server. The problems emerge when you deploy your application to a Web farm.
When you add a new page to your Web site, do you often find yourself cutting and pasting from another page to get started? If you're spending more time importing controls and setting up content regions for your master page than actually working on the new page, you might want to look into creating an "Item template" in Visual Studio.
It appears that ASP.NET actually includes a Response.RedirectLocation property which you can set instead of using the AppendHeader method we originally used in our tip about permanent redirects. The end result is the same, but based on the feedback we've received it seems that many of our readers prefer the RedirectLocation method.
As often happens, a visitor has taken one of our scripts and improved upon it.
Our original was designed to mimic VB's vbProperCase format. The problem is that they both fail
miserably on things like "Peter O'Tool" or "Camilla Parker-Bowles".
This new version handles both of those correctly.
We've all used Response.Redirect at one time or another. It's the quick and easy way to get
visitors pointed in the right direction if they somehow end up in the wrong place.
But did you know that Response.Redirect sends an HTTP response status code of "302 Found"
when you might really want to send "301 Moved Permanently"?
I've gotten a number of email from users anxious to use HttpOnly cookies in their legacy Web projects. Rest assured, you can get the same HttpOnly functionality regardless of your server side tool of choice... it's just takes a little more work.
Did you know that there's a simple little change you can make in the way you handle cookies that can help prevent your users from falling victim to a cross-site scripting attack? Implementing HttpOnly cookies is quick, easy, and goes a long way towards making your application safer for everyone.
This sample illustrates the basics of how to use the Ad Rotator control. The control is easy to use, and just like its .NET counterpart, it can be useful even if you're not actually serving advertisements.
Did you know that recent versions of Visual Studio all come with the handy little feature of being able to jump directly to the folder that contains the file you're currently working on?
This sample illustrates the basics of how to use the ASP.NET Ad Rotator control. The control is quite simple and even if you're not actually serving advertisements it's a great way to rotate the display of other images as well.
We must've done something right when we wrote this sample, because it's ten years later and users are still using it and even sending us their own customized versions. Quite a few changes in this version. If any of these features are something you think might be useful, download it and give it a whirl!
Our login and password sample code has always been case-sensitive. While we don't really recommend it, if you must make your usernames and/or passwords case-insensitive, it's actually quite easy to do.
While developers are usually interested in accessing the data contained within a database's tables, occasionally you need to know something about the tables themselves. It's at these times when this quick ASP.NET tip might come in handy.
This sample illustrates how ASP.NET handles the problem of maintaining a Web form's ViewState for you automatically. As such, the actual code involved is not that exciting, but the fact that it does all the work for you should excite you some.
Do you ever get sick of trying to remember the IP address to the local development version of a site you're working on? Here's a little tip that might help.
While you may expect to be able to install IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista Business and Vista Ultimate,
you might be surprised to learn that you can also install IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista Home Premium.
When deciding if you should leave a Web page's JavaScript and styles inline or move them to a separate linked .js or .css file, there are a few different factors to consider.
Did you know that you can move sections of your Web.config file into other files? Whether it's to keep things tidy or simply to make it easier to find the settings you change often, it's easy to do and yet few people even realize you can.
As a developer, repetitive code is your enemy. It takes longer to write, leads to larger files, and is harder to maintain. Which brings me to the point of this tip. Did you know that you can tie the same event handler to multiple objects? It's easy to do, but most people never think to try it.
This sample builds upon our original Checkbox sample by showing you how to
display boolean data as a checkbox and then how to save the state of that
checkbox back to a database.
Determining a person's age given their date of birth seems simple enough, but I get a lot of email from people who can't seem to get the code working as it should.
Microsoft just published a series of 46 -- that's right 46! -- tutorials that provide step-by-step
instructions for implementing the different controls in the ASP.NET AJAX
Control Toolkit. If you've been putting off messing with AJAX, what can
I say... sometimes procrastination does pay off!
There are times when it's nice to have a full blown development environment like
Visual Studio to mangage your site with, but there are also times when a simple little
web app fits the bill perfectly.
Why do people insist on using mm-dd-year or dd-mm-year when creating
log files? Are you really trying to see what happened on the same
month of every year or the same day of every month? You might want
to try this alternative, which when sorted numerically actually puts
the files into chronological order.
It sure took Microsoft long enough to add decent style sheet support
to Visual Studio, but man was it worth the wait. This article
examines the new CSS capabilities available in Visual Studio 2008.
