AKA "working virtual, or virtually working?"

My friend Griffin Caprio blogged about the virtues of being a virtual worker and finding wifi hotspots. I thought I'd chime in with a few tips of my own.

Insure your stuff

Make sure your computer equipment is covered. Many homeowner policies DON'T cover computers at all, or not if they're used for business. You may want to get a small umbrella business insurance policy to cover your equipment at home & on the road (think dropped laptop at the airport). Ask around for referrals, or pick a few insurance agents out of the phone book.

Host a Web Server

If you have a static IP address from your ISP, then you can configure DNS to point to a web server on your network, and host away. If you have a dynamic IP, however, then you need to use dynamic DNS to ensure that when your IP address changes, your DNS entry (www.yourcooldomain.com) points to the right IP. There are several providers. I've used DNSExit for years and it works well, but you can also check out No-IP, TZO, or DynDNS. Or others. Some routers come with built-in support for certain dynamic DNS providers, meaning a simple config change in your router is all that's needed to keep your DNS up to date.

Back up your stuff

What would you do if your computer crashed or your hard drive blew out? Would you lose any work? How long would it take you to recover? Backups are important for any IT professional, and I'd suggest an automated approach. You can go with a service like Mozy that runs on your PC and backs stuff up in the background. Or, if you have a place you can FTP files to (e.g. your ISP or an inexpensive host like e-rice or dreamhost) you can pick up a copy of WinZip 10 Pro which can regularly zip up & upload files via FTP. Remember to not only back up documents, but emails, code, and database dumps. Having an organized directory structure where your important files are makes it easier. Then, if disaster strikes, you'll be in a better position to recover. And the silver lining is maybe you'll now have a reason to get a shiny new PC.

Scott Mitchell wrote recently about a plug & play ASP.NET error-logging framework that he and Atif Aziz wrote for an MSDN article a while back. 

The framework is called ELMAH (Error Logging Modules and Handlers) and it's free & open source. Apparently you just install the DLL & add a few lines to your web.config, and it'll start logging errors while allowing administrators to view errors online or even access an RSS feed of recent errors. I usually install a global error handler in my ASP.NET apps & use log4net to log & email the information, but I never put together a web-based error viewer. So if there's a stable framework that wraps all that up, I'm all for it.

You can download & read more about ELMAH here. Some screenshots (courtesy of MSDN):

Viewing the error log

RSS feed of recent errors

So I was downloading the latest version of Anthem.NET to use for a Visual Studio 2003 project. I downloaded the zip, extracted, made the virtual directory, but kept getting weird security errors like

"The project location is not fully trusted by the .NET runtime. This is usually because it is either a network share or mapped to a network share not on the local machine.  If the output path is under the project location, your code will not execute as fully trusted and you may receive unexpected security exceptions."

and Visual Studio saying I can't debug the application. When I tried going to the local site in IE (localhost/Anthem-Examples-2003) I'd get

"Server cannot access application directory 'C:\Documents and Settings\Ben\My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\anthem\Anthem-Examples-2003\'. The directory does not exist or is not accessible because of security settings."

It always worked flawlessly before. So, after some dorking and searching around, I finally got it working, here's how I did it...

• After downloading the zip file, I right clicked it and clicked "Unblock" (some new XP SP2 security thing). Then I extracted it. That resolved the first "project location not trusted" issue.
• I then went to Control Panel->Admin Tools->.NET 1.1. Security Wizards, and gave full trust to the Intranet Zone.
• I then disabled simple file sharing (Control Panel->Folder Options->View tab->Uncheck simple file sharing). This allowed me to access the "Security" tab on folders.
• I then went to the folder containing the files that I extracted from the zip file. I right-clicked the folder, went to the (newly available) Security tab, and gave the Users group (of which the ASPNET account is part) standard (read/view/execute) access to that directory.

And now it works. I think a recent Windows security update is probably to blame. But, now we're back in action.

I forgot to include links for some of the libraries I used in my talk at Code Camp:

Atlas -- http://atlas.asp.net

Anthem -- http://www.anthemdotnet.com

Prototype -- http://prototype.conio.net/

script.aculo.us -- http://script.aculo.us/

 

I've spent a lot of time lately playing with Atlas & I'm enjoying working with it, despite the huge javascript payload. I wanted to incorporate some script.aculo.us effects into an Atlas page, and noticed this helpful post from huddletogether:

---

there seems to be a conflict between Scriptmanager and Scriptaculous
you need to place the Scriptaculous after the scriptmanager.
add the following lines of code to get it working:
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<atlas:ScriptManager ID="sm1" EnablePartialRendering="true" runat="Server" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/scriptaculous.js?load=effects"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/lightbox.js"></script>

other html goes here
<body>

---

I figured there would probably be javascript conflicts (Atlas already uses prototype's $ syntax). I wonder what else happens when intrepid ASP.NET coders want some fancy effects on their pages?

You can download the slides & code from Code Camp 2006 (Ajax and ASP.NET) here. Note the projects are for VS2005.

Instead of using Notepad all the time for viewing random text files, why not check out one of the many replacements mentioned on Rick Strahl's post on Notepad replacements. FWIW I use TextPad, although their menu hotkeys take a little getting used to (F5 for Find??).

Up to base 36, anyhow. This is a port from old C. I think it works (did it on paper).

// return decimal version of any number up to base 36
// e.g. strtonum("110", 16) returns 272 (which is 110 in base 16)
int strtonum(orig, base)
{
    string digits = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
    int retval = 0;

    for (int i = 0; i < orig.length; i++)
    {
        string character = orig[i];

        for (j = 0; j < digits.length; j++)
        {
            if (character == digits[j])
            {
                retval = retval * base + j;
                break;
            }
        }
    }

    return retval;
}

FYI, I'll be speaking at Portland Code Camp 2.0 this year, talking about incorporating AJAX functionality into ASP.NET applications. July 22nd & 23rd at WSU's Vancouver campus. It's free for everyone, so go ahead and get registered. Code Camp is a very informal, code-centric (as opposed to yak-centric) conference put on by developers, for developers.

I was tempted to also speak about O/R Mappers & code generators, but I think one presentation is enough this time around. :)

Edit: Code Camp is down to one day, July 22nd. Registration is free & starts at 8am.

Overview

The DevelopmentNow Google Calendar Monitor is a simple desktop application that synchronizes with your Google Calendar and pops up hard-to-miss, snoozable reminders for your events. You can also add events to your calendar without having to open a browser.

Installation

To install, just download the zip file, extract it, and run the EXE. Note that you must have the .NET 1.1 runtime installed (you can get it at Windows Update). The software has been tested on Windows XP Pro, SP2, but it should work on any computer that supports .NET 1.1. Note that firewalls will probably block the program. You will need to allow the program to access the internet in order to display your calendar.

General Use

To use, just start it up and go to the Settings panel. Enter your Google Calendar username and password, click Save Settings, and you're off. When you hide the main form, you'll see an icon in your taskbar. You can right-click it for menu options, single-click it for a quick view at today's apopintments, or double-click it to bring the main window back up.

Screenshots

Snoozable reminders pop up above your taskbar as well as in the middle of your screen, making it hard to miss your appointments.


Enter your settings for your Google Calendar


Add events to your Google Calendar


It automatically synchronizes with your online calendar

Privacy

Your settings are saved on your local computer and are not sent over the internet except to log into Google Calendar. None of your settings or calendar information are shared with anyone in any way. It's just as safe as if you went to http://calendar.google.com and logged in yourself.

Price / Licensing

The DevelopmentNow Google Calendar Monitor is free. Use it any way you want as long as you don't in any way alter, distribute, or sell it without DevelopmentNow's prior written approval.

Download

Get the Google Calendar Monitor here