DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by maartenba

Windows Azure Diagnostics in PHP

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:54:21 GMT

When working with PHP on Windows Azure, chances are you may want to have a look at what's going on: log files, crash dumps, performance counters, . All this is valuable information when investigating application issues or doing performance tuning. Windows Azure is slightly different in diagnostics from a regular web application. Usually, you log into a machine via remote desktop or SSH and inspect the log files: management tools (remote desktop or SSH) and data (log files) are all on the same machine. This approach also works with 2 machines, maybe even with 3. However on Windows Azure, you may scale beyond that and have a hard time looking into what is happening in your application if you would have to use the above approach. A solution for this? Meet the Diagnostics Monitor.

Hybrid Azure applications using OData

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:48:20 GMT

In the whole Windows Azure story, Microsoft has always been telling you could build hybrid applications: an on-premise application with a service on Azure or a database on SQL Azure. But how to do it in the opposite direction? Easy answer there: use the (careful, long product name coming!) Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus to expose an on-premise WCF service securely to an application hosted on Windows Azure. Now how would you go about exposing your database to Windows Azure? Open a hole in the firewall? Use something like PortBridge to redirect TCP traffic over the service bus? Why not just create an OData service for our database and expose that over AppFabric Service Bus. In this post, I'll show you how.

Simplified access control using Windows Azure AppFabric Labs

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:29:32 GMT

Earlier this week, Zane Adam announced the availability of the New AppFabric Access Control service in LABS. This just *has* to be good! Let's see how easy it is to work with claims based authentication and the AppFabric Labs Access Control Service, which I'll abbreviate to "ACS" throughout this post.

MvcSiteMapProvider 2.1.0 released!

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:02:50 GMT

The release for MvcSiteMapProvider 2.1.0 has just been posted on CodePlex. MvcSiteMapProvider is, as the name implies, an ASP.NET MVC SiteMapProvider implementation for the ASP.NET MVC framework. Targeted at ASP.NET MVC 2, it provides sitemap XML functionality and interoperability with the classic ASP.NET sitemap controls, like the SiteMapPath control for rendering breadcrumbs and the Menu control.

ASP.NET MVC 3 and MEF sitting in a tree...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:23:01 GMT

As I stated in a previous blog post: ASP.NET MVC 3 preview 1 has been released! I talked about some of the new features and promised to do a blog post in the dependency injection part. In this post, I'll show you how to use that together with MEF.

ASP.NET MVC 3 preview 1 is out! Quick review...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:20:30 GMT

I just noticed a very interesting download: ASP.NET MVC 3 preview 1. Yes, you are reading this correctly, the first bits for v3.0 are there! Let's have a quick look around and see what's new...

ASP.NET MVC - MvcSiteMapProvider 2.0 is out!

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 10:30:52 GMT

MvcSiteMapProvider is, as the name implies, an ASP.NET MVC SiteMapProvider implementation for the ASP.NET MVC framework. Targeted at ASP.NET MVC 2, it provides sitemap XML functionality and interoperability with the classic ASP.NET sitemap controls, like the SiteMapPath control for rendering breadcrumbs and the Menu control. Based on areas, controller and action method names rather than hardcoded URL references, sitemap nodes are completely dynamic based on the routing engine used in an application. The dynamic character of ASP.NET MVC is followed in the MvcSiteMapProvider: there are numerous extensibility points that allow you to extend the basic functionality offered.

Using Windows Azure Drive in PHP (or Ruby)

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:25:07 GMT

At the JumpIn Camp in Zürich this week, we are trying to get some of the more popular PHP applications running on Windows Azure. As you may know, Windows Azure has different storage options like blobs, tables, queues and drives. There's the Windows Azure SDK for PHP for most of this, except for drives. Which is normal: drives are at the operating system level and have nothing to do with the REST calls that are used for the other storage types. By the way: I did a post on using Windows Azure Drive (or "XDrive") a while ago if you want more info. Unfortunately, .NET code is currently the only way to create and mount these virtual hard drives from Windows Azure. But luckily, IIS7 has this integrated pipeline model which Windows Azure is also using. Among other things, this means that services provided by managed modules (written in .NET) can now be applied to all requests to the server, not just ones handled by ASP.NET! In even other words: you can have some .NET code running in the same request pipeline as the FastCGI process running PHP (or Ruby). Which made me think: it should be possible to create and mount a Windows Azure Drive in a .NET HTTP module and pass the drive letter of this thing to PHP through a server variable. And here's how...

Using FTP to access Windows Azure Blob Storage

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:24:17 GMT

A while ago, I did a blog post on creating an external facing Azure Worker Role endpoint, listening for incoming TCP connections. After doing that post, I had the idea of building a Windows Azure FTP server that served as a bridge to blob storage. Lack of time, other things to do, you name it: I did not work on that idea. Until now, that is.

MEF will not get easier, it's cool as ICE

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:15:03 GMT

Over the past few weeks, several people asked me to show them how to use MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework), some of them seemed to have some difficulties with the concept of MEF. I tried explaining that it will not get easier than it is currently, hence the title of this blog post. MEF is based on 3 keywords: export, import, compose. Since these 3 words all start with a letter that can be combined to a word, and MEF is cool, here's a hint on how to remember it: MEF is cool as ICE!

Windows Azure Drive (aka X-Drive)

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:45:39 GMT

With today's release of the Windows Azure Tools and SDK version 1.1, also the Windows Azure Drive feature has been released. Announced at last year's PDC as X-Drive, which has nothing to do with a well-known German car manufacturer, this new feature enables a Windows Azure application to use existing NTFS APIs to access a durable drive. This allows the Windows Azure application to mount a page blob as a drive letter, such as X:, and enables easily migration of existing NTFS applications to the cloud. This blog post will describe the necessary steps to create and/or mount a virtual hard disk on a Windows Azure role instance.

Translating routes (ASP.NET MVC and Webforms)

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:30:45 GMT

For one of the first blog posts of the new year, I thought about doing something cool. And being someone working with ASP.NET MVC, I thought about a cool thing related to that: let's do something with routes! Since System.Web.Routing is not limited to ASP.NET MVC, this post will also play nice with ASP.NET Webforms. But what's the cool thing? How about. translating route values?

Creating an external facing Azure Worker Role endpoint

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:24:32 GMT

When Windows Azure was first released, only Web Roles were able to have an externally facing endpoint. Since PDC 2009, Worker Roles can now also have an external facing endpoint, allowing for a custom application server to be hosted in a Worker Role. Another option would be to run your own WCF service and have it hosted in a Worker Role. Features like load balancing, multiple instances of the Worker are all available. Let's see how you can create a simple TCP service that can display the current date and time.

Reducing Code Coupling - Inversion of Control

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:00:03 GMT

This is the conclusion to my series on reducing code coupling. This installment follows from the previous ones, building on them by introducing the Inversion of Control pattern.

Ordering fields in ASP.NET MVC 2 templated helpers

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:15:00 GMT

Ever worked with the templated helpers provided by ASP.NET MVC 2? Templated helpers provide a way to automatically build UI based on a data model that is marked with attributes defined in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. For example, a property in the model can be decorated with the attribute [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:c}")], and the templated helpers will always render this field formatted as currency. If you have worked with templated helpers, you must agree: they can be useful! There's one thing which is impossible in the current version: ordering fields. And that's what this post will accomplish.

Vote to help me speak at the MIX 2010 conference!

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:39:56 GMT

Everybody knows the Microsoft MIX event, right? The one in Las Vegas? The one with all the fancy web-related stuff? Rings a bell? Ok, great. In the beginning of December 2009, Microsoft did an open call for speakers, which I answered with some session proposals. Who doesn't want to go to Vegas, right? The open call proposals have been processed (150+ sessions submitted, wow!) and a voting has started. Go ahead and vote on your favourite sessions! There's also Elijah Manor, Justin Etheredge, K. Scott Allen, and many others who submitted good looking sessions.

Localize Asp.Net MVC Views using a LocalizedViewEngine

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:39:20 GMT

Use a custom view engine to easily localize mvc views.

Windows Azure Platform Patterns, Pricing and Promotions

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:00:05 GMT

If you are a customer, partner or competitor of Microsoft, you'll want to take a look at this blog post that summarizes an excellent video presentation on the Windows Azure Platform Business Model and pricing plans.

Supporting multiple submit buttons on an ASP.NET MVC view

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:15:00 GMT

A while ago, I was asked for advice on how to support multiple submit buttons in an ASP.NET MVC application, preferably without using any JavaScript. The idea was that a form could contain more than one submit button issuing a form post to a different controller action. The above situation can be solved in many ways, one a bit cleaner than the other. For example, one could post the form back to one action method and determine which method should be called from that action method. Good solution, however: not standardized within a project and just not that maintainable. A better solution in this case was to create an ActionNameSelectorAttribute.

MSDN - Converting an existing ASP.NET application to Windows Azure

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:09:14 GMT

Put your stuff in the cloud! Windows Azure allows you to take advantage of cloud computing infranstructure for hosting, computing, and storage of your applications. In this demo filled session we take an existing ASP.Net Application and move it to be hosted in Windows Azure, while taking advantage of Windows Azure storage.

Localize ASP.NET MVC 2 DataAnnotations validation messages

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:30:01 GMT

Living in a country where there are there are three languages being used, almost every application you work on requires some form of localization. In an earlier blog post, I already mentioned ASP.NET MVC 2's DataAnnotations support for doing model validation. Ever since, I was wondering if it would be possible to use resource files or something to do localization of error messages. Here's how!

Connected Show #19 - User Experience: It ain't lipstick baby!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:00:01 GMT

In this episode guest co-host and Interviewee Dave Crawford of Microsoft UK joins Dmitry to discuss News such as Windows 7, Windows Stores, ZuneHD development, Java Bridge, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and many more stories. Finally Dave tells us all about the User Experience project role, how development projects can benefit from it and how Developers and Designers need to play nice together.

Recording of my session at Remix 2009 - ASP.NET MVC

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:43:06 GMT

Session recording of my remix09 talk: ASP.NET MVC Wisdom Abstract: "Building a Twitter clone in 60 minutes, featuring what's new in ASP.NET MVC 2 preview 1 and focusing on some of the core ASP.NET MVC features like security and routing."

Leveraging ASP.NET MVC 2 futures ViewState

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:30:10 GMT

In my previous blog post, I called something "ViewState in MVC" while it is not really ViewState. To be honest, I did this on purpose, wanting to see people discuss this possibly new feature in MVC 2. Discussion started quite fast: most people do not like the word ViewState, especially when it is linked to ASP.NET MVC. As Phil Haack pointed out in a comment on my previous blog post, I used this foul word where it was not appropriate: "(.) I think calling it ViewState is very misleading. (.) what your serializing is the state of the Model, not the View. (.)" Let's use this in a practical example.

Exploring the ASP.NET MVC 2 futures assemby

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:15:00 GMT

The latest preview of ASP.NET MVC 2, preview 2, has been released on CodePlex last week. All features of the preview 1 version are still in, as well as some nice novelties like client-side validation, single project areas, the model metadata model, . This post dives into the accompanying futures assembly and discovers... ViewState is coming back!