Rion Williams - Rion.IO (Page 6)

Handling Casing Issues though Extension Methods in C# and Visual Basic

If you have ever worked extensively with any kind of system that involves names, addresses or basically any kind of arena that allows users to enter data, then you might find this helpful. Users often don’t have any concern with how things might appear within an application and there

javascript tools regular-expressions

Regular Express Yourself using RegExpBuilder

Regular expressions. There are typically two polarizing reactions to the above statement. The first may result in a charge of attempted murder against your mouse and the other may have nested closer to your screen saying "Yes? Tell me more!". This article is primarily going to focus on

asp.net asp.net mvc

Using a Cookie-Aware WebClient to Persist Authentication in ASP.NET MVC

Earlier this year, I was working on an iOS Application that interacted with a running ASP.NET MVC site and the need arose for the iPhone user to authenticate so that they could access some of the Actions within a Controller decorated with the [Authorize] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/

tools

Merge Smarter with Semantic Merge

Any experienced developer at one time or another has encountered issues when merging their code and has been met with that nasty conflict icon. A new product from Plastic SCM [http://www.plasticscm.com/] called Semantic Merge is hoping to get rid of that little red guy once and for

visual-studio resharper

A Battle of Intellisense (between Visual Studio and Resharper)

Resharper [http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/] is great. I believe that most developers that use it within the .NET environment can attest to its many merits and how it can make your life easier and you more productive. However, I recently noticed a minor power struggle occurring within Visual Studio

visual-studio regular-expressions tools

Line Counting Trickery within Visual Studio

Line counts have always been one of the most common metrics associated with software development projects, albeit not a very meaningful one [http://stackoverflow.com/q/184071/557445]. Although Visual Studio is Microsoft’s flagship IDE, there are often a few features that many users would like to be able

asp.net asp.net mvc asp.net web-api

Using CORS in ASP.NET WebAPI Without Being a Rocket Scientist

If you have done any extensive work with AJAX calls, then the odds are that you have fun into an unfriendly mechanism that will have your request ground to a halt known as CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing). Most commonly this will occur when you are attempting to pull data

visual-studio

Specifying Ports When Running Applications in Visual Studio

I've come across several questions over the past few months with developers asking questions regarding the port values that are used when running applications through Visual Studio, primarily where are the values coming from and how to set them. Although this may be a fairly trivial topic, it

community

Vacation and Technology Hiatus

You may have noticed that this place has been rather inactive during the month of May and trust me, I have noticed as well. With numerous projects nearing completion and wrapping up, a vacation to the Caribbean and a break from all digital means was much needed. I hope to

asp.net asp.net mvc

.NET 4.5 Controller Blocking Issues – Resolved!

Just an update to my earlier post on the Controller Blocking Issue in .NET 4.5 [http://rion.io/2013/03/11/resolving-controller-blocking-within-net-4-5-and-asp-net-mvc/] that plagued me for a few weeks. A hotfix has been added and is currently available for download, which should allow you to go about your days

asp.net asp.net mvc json

Handling Larger JSON String Values in .NET and Avoiding Exceptions

Working with JSON within Web Services recently has become the latest and greatest simply because it plays so nicely with others and can often be very easily serialized and deserialized to fit your needs. There is just something rewarding about having a massive collection of complex objects that can be

c# visual-studio

Enabling Underflow and Overflow Checking within Visual Studio

Overflow and underflow aren’t errors that most developers encounter within their daily lives and it's likely even less often that you will actually encounter an actual Overflow exception. This is because by default within Visual Studio Arithmetic overflows and underflows are disabled by default and when they

tools

Using Pex and Microsoft Code Digger to Better Understand and Test Your Code

Code is a bit like an animal. If a great deal of effort is placed into training the animal (through proper design practices, testing methodologies and reviews) then it can easily be domesticated by an experienced developer and can do just about any trick that its owner desires. In contrast,

visual-studio github tools

Integrating and Using GitHub in Visual Studio 2012

With so many source control options out there, it can be a daunting task in choosing one, especially that you enjoy using and integrates well with your development environment. In recent years, the open-source mecca GitHub [http://www.github.com] has taken over as a premier repository for allowing users

asp.net asp.net mvc

Creating Advanced Audit Trails using ActionFilters in ASP.NET MVC

As mentioned in my previous article on Implementing Simple Audit Trails using ActionFilters in ASP.NET MVC [http://rion.io/2013/03/03/implementing-audit-trails-using-asp-net-mvc-actionfilters/] , accountability is such an important factor when working with systems that involve any level of security and confidentiality. In that post, we discussed creating a very

productivity tools

Improving Productivity through Trello

If you have ever found yourself juggling several development projects at once and bouncing from solution-to-solution making minor fixes, changes and improvements, then you know how easily it can be to just get overwhelmed or off-task in situations like these. Everyone has their own methods of handling these scenarios and

asp.net visual-studio signalr

Getting SignalR-Ready in Visual Studio 2010

The recent Microsoft ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 Update [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ReleasedASPNETAndWebTools20122InContext.aspx]made the process of creating SignalR applications much easier within Visual Studio 2012. The update added a series of templates for designing various types of applications, one of which was a very

community

State of the Union : Blogging, Involvement and Future Goals

Well it has been a bit over two months since I launched this site and began my trek of giving back and I will say that I am still having fun doing it. I thought I would write up a quick summary of how things are going and where I

The Missing Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.dll File

I’ve ran across numerous questions on a variety of different forums recently with users that were trying to find the Intelligencia.UrlRewriter.dll file that is apparently included in several tutorials within some older .NET literature, but were unable to find it. The creator of the project, UrlRewriter.net

asp.net visual-studio

Finding the ASP.NET Configuration Tool in Visual Studio 2012

When Visual Studio decided to get its most recent facelift with its 2012 release, you might have found yourself looking around for a few things that may have shifted during the trip. One of these things that was the ASP.NET Configuration tool, which you may know as the "

javascript

Simple Popup Window Management in Javascript

Based on a question that I received earlier this week on closing windows within a page that were opened through the window.open() [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/window.open] function in Javascript, I thought I would throw together a very quick example demonstrating how to easily open

asp.net asp.net mvc

Resolving Controller Blocking within .NET 4.5 and ASP.NET MVC

While recently updating an MVC Project, several erratic issues began to start to arise involving inconsistent Controller calls, Controller blocking and apparent deadlocks that were basically rendering the application (and the poor browser handling it) useless. The update was performed in two phases, the first being a simple ASP.NET

tools

Handy Development Tools for Assisting Others From Your Browser

While I was performing my usual duties on the forums, I received a response regarding one of the examples that I had used for an answer and I thought I would elaborate a bit more on it and some of the other tools that I find myself commonly using. But

asp.net asp.net mvc

Implementing Audit Trails using ASP.NET MVC ActionFilters

Accountability is always important, especially when dealing with systems that contain sensitive data. It can often be helpful to have an audit trail that will allow you to go back and retrace the steps that a user took, what they saw, where they went and ultimately what they may have

asp.net linq

Querying Wikipedia in ASP.NET using LINQ-to-Wiki

Have you ever visited Wikipedia and simply just gotten lost in the abyss of knowledge that is available there? If only something existed to allow you to easily create complex queries that would provide you with exactly what you needed using syntax that were familiar with like LINQ? Well then