Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh patch to run after expiration date

Once upon a time I won a Silverlight coding competition by writing a simple game in Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh. A few weeks ago a beta tester of my game requested to play with it, once more. Installing the redistributable (thanks god I keep an archive of these because I couldn’t find it on Microsoft’s site) I came up with a message box that said that this version has expired (the alpha version should expire on 1st nov 2007).

Integrating WSS 3.0 Document Library into an existing asp.net application. Setting up the authentication.

If you search around the net, you’ll most probably find a lot of articles discussing how to create windows sharepoint services (WSS) modules or even how to install WSS on top of existing web site. In my case, I have to create a document management system in an existing asp.net application. In order to do so, I will be using the office integration that is provided by the document library of WSS and will be writing custom forms to handle the rest of the gui.

Redirecting any unauthenticated requests to a login form located on another asp.net application

If you have configured forms authentication across multiple asp.net applications, you may want to force users to authenticate in a single signing form. To do so you may implement a simple HttpModule that will be handling the AuthenticateRequest and redirecting to the corresponding login form.

Configuring forms authentication across asp.net applications

In order to enable forms authentication across multiple asp.net application you will have to setup the forms authentication to specify the same name, protection and path among all the asp.net applications that will be collaborating.

Asp.net HTTP module to force authenticate user via Basic WWW-Authenticate dialogue

Playing around with the available authentication methods I came up with a simple Http module that forces the browser to display the build in credentials form and authenticates the user by simply adding a line in the web.config file.

VCARD quoted-printable decoding and importing to outlook

My father replaced an old LG KU380 and wanted to transfer his contacts to his new Ericson mobile phone. Unluckily for me, LG provided some software that was promising to synchronize the mobile phone with the outlook, but it wouldn’t stay connected with the phone for more than one minute. Thus, every 100 contacts it would stall and start over again. The next available option was to export the contacts in a vcf file from within the mobile phone and transfer the generated file via Bluetooth.

Manual creation helpers

Ever wanted to create a manual for you application? Well, instead of pressing the print screen button and then editing the captured screens you may use a few build-in tools of windows 7 to help you out. The first tool I would like to mention is the “Snipping Tool” (located in Accessories) which allows you to select the region you want to capture and then edit it. The second one is the amazing “Problem Steps Recorder” (psr.exe located in windows\system32 folder) which allows you to record the steps you do and writes a pretty nice tutorial for you. The only problem is that it takes full screen pictures, but you can always resize the screen resolution and hide the start menu bar.

Hope this will help save a few hours from the nasty manual making job!