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CustomPrincipal and Serialization

Jun 15
Posted by Mark in Technology

Recently, I’ve been working on a project that relies on a backend business object layer.  The business object (BO) layer, requires authentication in order to be used.  For most of the systems, this is okay, but my project is to be used by end users.  We don’t need to authenticate the users… we need to authenticate the system.

This is easy enough using the CustomPrincipal object in Rocky Lhotka’s CSLA framework (which is also being used).  We simply create the CustomPrincipal and add that to the ApplicationContext. (more…)

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Use it or lose it

Jun 10
Posted by Mark in Technology

There’s a commonly known piece of information that pretty much everyone knows… use it or lose it.  It applies to foreign languages, computer language, cooking techniques… all sorts of things.

Things like the code to unlock restrictions on an iPhone! (more…)

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Burnin’ up the cellular data

May 12
Posted by Mark in Technology

I got a text message from AT&T this morning.  It was a courtesy message to let me know that I was approaching my monthly data limit.  I only signed up for the 200Mb plan so 65% of that means that I’ve used up 130Mb.  How the heck did that happen?!

It turns out it’s not that hard to do… especially when you update your applications just before you leave the comfy confines of work and free wi-fi.  I began the application update while connected to the wi-fi at work, but then left for home.  The phone dutifully continued to update the applications over the cellular network.  Ooops! (more…)

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“Belts and Suspenders” or how to be really protected

Apr 20
Posted by Mark in Technology

Everyone knows they should be backing up their data, right?  Just like flossing and rotating your tires though, sometimes it’s easy to let it slip for a while.  But for those of you that *do* backup your data, are you doing it right?

First of all, there’s really no excuse for not backing up your data now-a-days.  External hard drives are really affordable and dead simple.  Backup software is built into most modern operating system to make it as invisible as possible.  If you’re not backing up your data, you must have some sort of obsession with tempting fate. (more…)

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Macs are awesome, but…

Mar 03
Posted by Mark in Technology

Here I am… happily working along when suddenly, the screen goes gray.  My headphones cut out and I’m left in awful silence.  On the gray screen, I get the following message…

“You need to restart your computer.  Hold down the Power button until it turns off, then press the Power button again.”

(more…)

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Windows Scheduled Task

Feb 10
Posted by Mark in Technology

We run lots of batch processes overnight. We do this to send emails, to generate reports, etc… We do all this via Windows Scheduled Tasks. It works great.

Recently, I needed to add a new scheduled task.  I went through the process of adding the task but when I tried to run it, it failed.  The error message I got was “Could not start task“

(more…)

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Release Mode error message

Nov 29
Posted by Mark in Technology

We’re approaching delivery of the baby!  In the next few months, we’ll be releasing our product.  This is great news as it’s been a long time coming.  As is the norm, we’ve been developing our product in Debug mode.  While in Debug mode, Visual Studio will generate extra files to allow stepping through the code.  This is a great thing for creating the initial code, but it’s not necessary for code that’s deployed to the world at large.

When I switched Visual Studio over from Debug mode to Release mode, I got a weird error. (more…)

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Unknown class “class name” in Interface Builder file.

Oct 05
Posted by Mark in Technology

Wow… just… wow.  This took a long time to figure out.  I was trying to create and use a custom UIButton in an iOS project.  Everytime I tried it, the app would open and immediately close.  Typical crash behavior.

As is the norm, I opened the console.  This is my first step in trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

(more…)

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Keybindings on the Mac

Sep 29
Posted by Mark in Technology

As you’ve probably gathered, I (proudly) consider myself a Mac guy.  I have spent enough money on Apple products to allow El Jobso to get an extra cup of coffee every day for the rest of his life.  I do a lot of work on my Macs.  But I’ve been a Windows developer since… well, nearly forever.

(more…)

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System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException

Jul 19
Posted by Mark in Technology

Recently, we’ve had some fairly serious problems on our network. This has led to the admin staff removing our network profiles. It was an accident, but it still happend. The problem is now that the entire IT staff has to reconfigure our workstations.

We’re using Visual Studio 2008 for our web applications. I finally got my code base updated via Subversion (no small feat) and tried to open a solution. I was presented with an error message stating:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException

It appears this is caused by IIS not being installed or properly configured.  Since my network profile had to be rebuilt my rights need to be reset also.  They didn’t make me an administrator of my box so I can’t check it.

(more…)

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