Can't Grok, Won't Grok

So, I was messing with some ideas for site structure and security, and it came to my deploying the site to IIS. Now, I admit, I am still pretty new to IIS7 and Windows Vista (Home Premium), so I was expecting some issues, but this was kicked my ass for a good 45 mins ! Once I had deployed my site and browsed to it, I was getting the following error: CS0016: Could not write to output file 'c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\… ‘Access is denied.’ (Where … is the randomly-generated DLL names created by ASP.NET ). So, I figured, “OK this is probably a permissions issue” as I have encountered similar before in XP, where the ASPNET user account needed to be added. I also know that in Vista this account is called “NETWORK SERVICE” . I then update the permissions for the “Temporary ASP.NET Files” folder in the .NET Framework folder, eagerly get back to my browser, hit F5.. Boom. No dice, same error message. After doing some digging on th...

So, here it is, my first ever screencast. After much encoding and re-encoding, I think I finally have a quality that is good enough. What’s Covered? In short, while working through some exercise materials for my MCAD , I was having problems adding the component to a Web Form in VS2005. The study materials stated that I should be able to drag and drop, but that was not the case.. In this screencast, I create a simple component and add it to a Web Form. Links Slides from the Screencast Component Programming Walkthroughs on MSDN IComponent Interface on MSDN MCAD Course Overview In Summary Glad I have finally got this uploaded. Now, I know it is not perfect, and I have already watched it several times and taken notes. I was considering not posting this and re-doing it, however I decided I need to spend less time (at this stage) and more getting stuff out there and getting feedback from the people that matter, you people. Please do leave feedback,...

I have seen a lot of talk on Twitter recently following the explosion of a popular tool TwitteRank (at the time of writing, the site appeared to be taken down) and the possibility that it was actually a phishing scam for passwords . What is TwitteRank? In short, it’s a tool that produces a “score” based on your Twitter popularity . Reading the FAQ on the site, it offers no insight as to how the number is derived, but it does come up with a number. There have been plenty of tweets from people broadcasting their rank (this may/will include other messages as it is a pretty generic search term). So - I Get My TwitteRank, What’s the Best That Could Happen? Interesting question.. I am thinking: You get your TwitteRank, all your friends are jealous. Sadly you walk under a bus the next day. You then stand before the big man at the pearly gates who is checking out your rap sheet, he sees your TwitteRank and quickly becomes very apologetic and promptly ushers you to the VIP ...

As you may have guessed from my previous post where quickly  cover Live mesh being released for Windows Mobile devices – I have recently upgraded my phone from a Sony Ericsson K800i * to a O2 Xda “Ignito” which is a O2 branded version of the HTC Touch Diamond . The Ignito is currently the latest Xda available from O2. I will spare you the details of the specs of the phone, which can be reviewed on the HTC site here . The purpose of this post is you to give you guys my honest thoughts on it, not sell it. Why an Ignito? First off, what compelled me to get the Ignito rather than another Xda offering from O2? I compared it to others available, and it has the best hardware. I am typically pretty demanding of my machines so I will always aim to get a good CPU speed and memory since I tend to multitask a lot. It also comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 which seems to have some great improvements over Windows Mobile 6 (although this is purely based on basic comparative reading – I ha...

Hi all! Just a quick post to let you know that I am in fact still alive. I have been moved on to another project at work, that is was in a REAL bad way (now it just “needs some work”). And that has been chewing up a lot of my time. Good news is I am now getting things under control and I have been able to spend a bit of time today catching up on my RSS and checking out some stuff. One of the hot topics from the Live Mesh team – Mesh is now available for Windows Mobile 6+ devices ! I have been REALLY looking forward to this finally coming about! I use Mesh a lot. Well this is a lie. I actually use it very little, it just works away in the background! So what does this mean? It simply means you have a reliable bit of synchronization kit that can run in the background keeping your devices and data available . I will probably start light and just having it sync some PDF’s for reading on the train on my way to work. A nice touch for default install (something I was surp...

StackOverflow has been in private beta for a while now, and the community has exploded. I thought I would take a bit of time out to review some of my thoughts following it’s release to the public. These points are not really in any order or organisation, so forgive me if it’s a bit of a poor read, I have literally been jotting down ideas for this post as and when they popped in to my head. My apologies if it’s all too random :) Some Big Names Enter the Affray So we have had a couple of big names get in to StackOverflow including: Scott Hanselman ( profile ) John Resig ( profile ) Roy Osherove ( profile ) (thanks Mendelt!) Jon Galloway ( profile ) (thanks Jon!) Phil Haack ( profile ) (thanks Jon!) Jon Skeet ( profile ) (thanks Anon!) (If anyone else has noticed some other big names, let me know and I will get this list updated) This is not only nice to see (because they are good guys) but the technical expertise they will bring to the communi...

Having read the following question from MattBerry on the student forum for the MCAD I am studying towards: Does anyone know how to make a custom control the top most control on a form i.e. its z-order. I know forms create the z-order in the order the controls are created, and I know you can use the control.BringToFront method after all controls have been created. What I want to know is, is it possible to set this z-order in the custom control's code, so that it can be encapsulated? It sparked my curiosity, can it be done? I have never tried anything like this myself. And yes, there is a side of me that would get REALLY pissed off with using a control that did this, but I thought “what the hell?” lets have a look and see what we can do. Now, a bit of disclosure, it has been a while since I done any Windows development, so this may well be possible to do a lot easier, but hey, it took me 15 minutes :P Getting Started I had no real ide...